Nutrient loss to erosion responds to rain characteristics under transformed landscapes in the Río Grande basin, Colombian Andes

Abstract

The functioning of tropical montane ecosystems are key provider of environmental services. However, climate and land use change interactively affect the ecohydrological and biogeochemical processes that support the provision of such services. We evaluate the effect of land use/land coverand the seasonality and intensity of the rainfall on the ecological functions of erosion control and nutrient regulation in a gradient of human intervention in the Central Andes of Colombia. Our results show that soil erosion (kg/ha/year) was higher in the transitory crop (187.7), followed by the permanent crop (98.2), and much lower in the pasture (8.0) and native forest (7.2).Our results also indicate a differential effect of land use and rainfall seasonality on

Land-Use Dynamics and Water Quality in Andean Basins

“…However, conventional agriculture is simultaneously one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss, especially in the Upper Cauca River Basin (UCRB) in Colombia due to large areas of monocultures [16,17]. Deforestation and degradation rates are also increasing in the UCRB due to the cultivation of intensive and illegal crops [18][19][20][21].…”