The impact of cotton geotextiles on soil and water losses from Mediterranean rainfed agricultural land

Abstract

High soil erosion risk of Mediterranean cultivated soils is due to steep slopes, high rainfall intensities and low vegetation cover. Traditional land management as ploughing and herbicides give rise to high soil erosion rates. This paper reports on the use of a cotton geotextiles to control soil and water losses on agricultural land under Mediterranean climatic conditions. Eight paired plots (1, 2, 4 and 16 m 2 ) were studied during 1-year period under natural rainfall. Forty rainfall simulations under wet and dry climatic conditions, and water drop penetration time (WDPT) tests, were carried out in order to analyze the effect of a geotextile on soil and water losses on a typical rainfed orchard in Eastern Spain. Results showed that an 8 mm thick cotton geotextile reduced soil loss to negligible values (from 14 to 0Á1 Mg ha À1 y À1) due to the low sediment concentration as geotextile covered 100% of the soil. However, infiltration rates decreased and runoff increased due to the hydrophobic response of the cotton material. The runoff discharge increased from 8% to 16% for the 2004 period under natural rainfall and from 27% to 87% under simulated rainfall when summer dry conditions were reached. The cotton geotextile reduced local soil losses at plotscale, but increased runoff.

The immediate effectiveness of barley straw mulch in reducing soil erodibility and surface runoff generation in Mediterranean vineyards

“…The most common soil management techniques in Mediterranean countries consist of tillage (mechanical weeding) and no-tillage (chemical weeding) operations (García-Orenes et al, 2009), and both of them generally result in bare soils during the entire year Lasanta and Sobrón, 1988;Vaudour et al, 2015). However, alternative and more conservation-minded soil management practices have also been used like catch crops (Bonfante et al, 2015;García-Orenes et al, 2009), mulching (Jordán et al, 2011;Costantini et al, 2015), hydromulching (Prats et al, 2013), geotextiles (Giménez-Morera et al, 2010), natural grassing (Raclot et al, 2009) and rock fragments (Blavet et al, 2009).…”

Los suelos de Casapalma (Valle del Guadalhorce, Málaga). Análisis edafogeográfico aplicado a la ordenación del territorio

“…Nuestra conclusión es afín a desestimar esa posibilidad, al menos, en la provincia de Málaga y, más concretamente, en nuestra área de estudio. Esto es atribuido a que: i) existen numerosos errores de identificación de suelos por la parte de la fuente edafológica utilizada en la provincia de Málaga; ii) confiamos en que las características químicas y físicas del suelo son irrepetibles en diferentes contextos espacio-temporales y virtualmente irreproducibles (Keestra et al, 2007;Keestra et al, 2009;Giménez Morera et al, 2010;Zhao et al, 2013;Xiao et al, 2015). Esta línea sería una cuestión importante para profundizar en el futuro como sugieren Liess et al (2012), incorporando herramientas de clasificación de suelos de FAO-WRB como los horizontes de diagnóstico.…”

The effectiveness of jute and coir blankets for erosion control in different field and laboratory conditions

“…Similar results were reached by Khan and Binoy (2012), Shao et al (2014) and Sutherland and Ziegler (2007; see Table 1). On the contrary, some studies (both field and laboratory) concluded that GTXs increase the run-off volume (Álvarez Mozos et al, 2014;Giménez-Morera et al, 2010;Kertézs et al, 2007). The increase might be caused by a dense cover of GTXs (Mitchel et al, 2003) or high slope gradient, where water can flow through the GTX fibres without infiltration into the soil (Álvarez-Mozos et al, 2014).…”