Indicators of landscape functionality in abandoned lands aimed for arid land conservation in the Monte Desert, Argentina

YANNELLI, F.A; TABENI S.

Oulu

Conferencia; The 9th European Conference on Ecological Restoration; 2014

Abandonment of agricultural land worldwide provides an opportunity to analyze the development of self-sustaining systems. It is highly relevant to assess the current status of an ecosystem after cessation of use, characterizing the composition, richness or diversity of communities, but also quantifying basic processes and functions. The Monte Desert is the most arid rangeland of Argentina, where human activities have been suggested as the main causes of degradation processes. This study explores the functional status of former agricultural fields, now abandoned for more than 40 years and currently used as a conservation area. We compare the effects in the organization of the landscape and the changes on the soil surface conditions related to the different periods of land abandonment. For this, we use the landscape function analysis (LFA) methodology as it reflects the status of critical ecosystem processes and leads to obtaining a classification of a given ecosystem based on their state of degradation, through three indices i.e. stability or resistance to erosion, infiltration or water storage capacity and nutrient cycling. The results showed that shrub cover, total patch area, the amount of patches and the landscape organization were enhanced by increased time of land abandonment, while the average interpatch length decreased. On the other hand, only the nutrient cycling index had significant differences and was higher for the old abandoned sites. Although conservation management based on land abandonment was proven to be positive in terms of patch area and shrub cover, it was not translated to landscape stability and infiltration. Thus, this measure is not efficient in preventing further degradation processes in the study area.