Effects of land-use change on some properties of tropical soils - An example from Southeast México
We studied the effects of land-use and land-cover changes on physical and chemical properties of soil in tropical South-East Mexico. In the study area of about 5500 km2, the dominant land use is pastureland (Pa seasonal agriculture (TA), fruit plantations (FP), sugarcane, (SC) secondary (SF) and primary forest (PF) and other not specified land-use types (undefined). From 1988 to 2003 severe deforestation took place and pastureland increased by 179% while primary forest decreased to 17% of the initial area. Based on topographic and soil maps we selected 176 sampling sites covering the combinations of topography and soil type. In 2005, we took soil samples in each selected site from two soil depths (0-20 cm and 20-40 cm). We analyzed fertility parameters like pH, texture and contents of organic carbon, total nitrogen and available phosphorus. Furthermore, we measured soil resistance against penetration in layers of 5 cm down to a depth of 40 cm. We estimated land-use changes between 1988 and 2005 using digital land-use maps derived from satellite and aerial photography interpretation. We compared soil properties of different soil types, soils under different current land use and under the influence of land-cover changes. Gleysols, Vertisols, Regosols, Luvisols and Leptosols showed clay to clay loam texture, whereas Cambisols were characterized by sandy clay loam texture. All soil groups in the study region were slightly acidic with pH(KCl) values between 5.3 and 6.2. Furthermore, they neither showed significant differences in available P content nor in C/N ratio. However, the investigated soil associations displayed different organic carbon and total nitrogen contents in the upper 20 cm depth.
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Texto biblioteca |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | Análisis de suelos, Uso de la tierra, Fertilidad del suelo, Química de suelos, Deforestación, Suelos tropicales, Artfrosur, |
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