Dealing with soil variability: some insights from land degradation research in central Spain

Fitzjohn, C.; Ternan, J. L.; Williams, Andy; Pérez‐González, Alfredo; Alba, S. de

doi:10.1002/ldr.485

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Also Cammeraat and Imeson (1999), Lesschen et al (2008) and Navarro et al (2006) refer to the specific patchiness and distinctive micro-topography. Fitzjohn et al (2002) outline the difficulties of this smallscale heterogeneity for monitoring, understanding, interpreting and managing, but they derive an 'effective strategy for reducing runoff and erosion risk' from the spatial variability.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Methodologies for soil erosion and land degradation assessment in mediterranean‐type ecosystems

Ries

2009

Land Degrad Dev

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The detection of spatial distribution and temporal development of soil erosion processes and forms on abandoned land still represents a great scientific challenge. Abandoned fields as a result of land use changes during the past century can frequently be found in the Mediterranean. The former fields are generally used for grazing and therefore are highly complex concerning the variability of soil erosion processes.A three-step research method is used for assessment and evaluation of soil erosion processes. By means of rainfall simulations, test plot monitoring and large-scale aerial photography, erosion processes are quantified and scenarios are presented for three test sites in northeast Spain.With a large-scale test plot monitoring the development of soil erosion processes can be evaluated. Areas with predominantly increasing soil erosion activity are classified as unstable, whereas areas with unchanged or decreasing soil erosion activity are classified as vulnerable or stable. Forty to 70 years after abandonment and change to grazing all observed test areas show a progressive degradation. The proportion of unstable areas reaches around 50 per cent. The extension of unstable areas, characterised by a combination of increasing erosion activity and decreasing vegetation cover, is highest within the semi-arid Ebro Basin reaching 29 per cent of the whole area. Dense vegetation cover does not always correlate with stability in erosion and increase in cover does not generally lead to a stabilisation of erosion processes. Even under increasing vegetation cover of more than 60 per cent high erosion and runoff rates are possible particularly in connected rills and on sheep trails. Therefore, grazing on abandoned fields is the critical factor leading to further degradation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The process dynamics and the development are difficult to record and evaluate (García-Ruiz et al, 1991;Fitzjohn et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodologies for soil erosion and land degradation assessment in mediterranean‐type ecosystems

Ries

2009

Land Degrad Dev

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“…Soil distribution and variability has also been identified as relevant for understanding degradation and regradation processes (Fitzjohn et al, 2002;Seeger et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Soil degradation and soil surface process intensities on abandoned fields in Mediterranean mountain environments

Seeger

Ries

2008

Land Degrad Dev

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The Pyrenean and Pre-Pyrenean mountain areas have been intensively used at least since roman times, but nowadays depopulation has lead to widespread land abandonment without a steering land-management. Vegetation recovery is weak in most abandoned fields. Soil formation and characteristics are conditioned by this fact, and for this, soils show past degradation processes and are mostly predominant factors for continuing land degradation or restoration. Three study areas were set up along a climatic gradient with increasing summer water deficit in the sub-humid zone between the Central Pyrenees and Pre-Pyrenees. Soil survey combined with experiments for the determination of infiltration, runoff and erosion were applied for understanding the degradation history and the future development of the soils. All areas are dominated by Entisols, but also Inceptisols and Alfisols are found, and even soils with hydromorphic features. The soils show signs of heavy erosion. The parental material determines the nutrient supply and the general chemical properties. All sites show a weak water storing capacity, as a result of the removal of fine material by erosion and due to the depletion of soil organic matter. In addition, infiltration capacity and runoff generation are high within the studied areas, averaging between 27 and 37 per cent. The driest area studied shows an ongoing trend to degradation, with high erosion rates combined with a high degradations status of the soil. The other areas are characterised by a patchy pattern of soil degradation and regradation processes.

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“…This nested model implies that the short-range variations of leaching are due to the presence of local pedotopographic characteristics such as soil properties and land-cover, according to Cambardella et al (1994), Rahman et al (1996), andFitzjohn et al (2002). This finding suggest that the increase of variability in pedotopographic properties produces a mosaic pattern of source and sink area.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Environinformatics in ecological risk assessment of agroecosystems pollutant leaching

Diodato¹,

Ceccarelli

2005

Stoch Environ Res Ris Assess

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In this paper, a novel approach for mapping leaching risk at large sub-regional scale under limited information is presented, with acronym environinformatics in ecological risk assessment. The problem consists into quantifying the exchange frequency of the plant available soil water (Narula et al. in J Geogr Inform Decision Anal 7(1) [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46] 2002), this frequency can be adopted as a measure indicating the nutrient and contaminant leaching risk for a site. Our approach is based on integrating soil water balance with spatial analysis tools. However, any decision involved in scientific risk evaluation requires the accurate quantification of the degree of uncertainty arising from sampling, modelling and interpolation errors. The non-parametric geostatistical procedure of Indicator Kriging enables to circumvent this problem by estimating the probability that the true value exceed a set of threshold values. The transformation of leaching data to a binary response variable, known as ''indicator'', can lead to a soft description of leaching. Such soft description can mitigate the uncertainty in exchange frequency estimates of the plant available soil water. The approach was applied to a test site in Beneventan agroecosystem (South Italy) by using a long-term hydrological water balance acquired in a 40-years period. In this way, about 400 km 2 (25%) of the total 2,000 km 2 of the Benevento province were classified as areas sensitive to nutrient and contaminant leaching.

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Dealing with soil variability: some insights from land degradation research in central Spain

Cited by 14 publications

References 34 publications

Methodologies for soil erosion and land degradation assessment in mediterranean‐type ecosystems

Methodologies for soil erosion and land degradation assessment in mediterranean‐type ecosystems

Soil degradation and soil surface process intensities on abandoned fields in Mediterranean mountain environments

Environinformatics in ecological risk assessment of agroecosystems pollutant leaching

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