IADIZA   20886
INSTITUTO ARGENTINO DE INVESTIGACIONES DE LAS ZONAS ARIDAS
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Indicators of landscape functionality in abandoned lands aimed for arid land conservation in the Monte Desert, Argentina
Autor/es:
YANNELLI, F.A; TABENI S.
Lugar:
Oulu
Reunión:
Conferencia; The 9th European Conference on Ecological Restoration; 2014
Resumen:
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.