Impacto de las prácticas agropecuarias y forestales sobre las propiedades físico-químicas de los suelos andinos del sur del Ecuador

Abstract

The Andean forest and paramo ecosystems provide several socio-economic and environmental services, however in recent decades these areas have been suffered enormous pressure mainly due to global change. Where agricultural, livestock and forestry practices are degrading these ecosystems. Despite their importance, the impacts have not been adequately studied. Therefore, this research has as main objective to identify the impact of agricultural, livestock and forestry practices on the physical and chemical properties of the main soils types of both ecosystems. For this, information was collected from 4 observatories, 2 in páramo (Zhurucay and Soldados) and 2 in montane forest (Mazar and Aguarongo). The sites were monitored intensively, where both physical and chemical properties of soils under major land uses were characterized. To assess the impacts a comparison between non-altered sites (natural) and altered due to anthropogenic practices on each observatory was perform. The practices analyzed in paramo ecosystems were tussockgrass burning, extensive grazing in tussockgrass, pasture cultivation, planting pines; while in forest were analyzed pasture cultivation and crop lands. The results show, for the case of forest, that crops cause greater impact compared to the planting of grasses. In the case of paramo soils, it was found that the practice causes the most impact is the forestation with pine. The BpB has greater impact on hydrophysical properties, while the BpM has greater influence on the chemical. Ppa was apparently the practice with smaller impact on soil properties