Relationship of soil characteristics to vegetation successions on a sequence of degraded and rehabilitated soils in Honduras
1999
Paniagua, A. | Kammerbauer, J. | Avedillo, M. | Andrews, A.M.
Land degradation and rehabilitation on hillsides are some of the most urgent natural resources management challenges in tropical and subtropical agriculture. Shifting cultivation is widespread in developing countries and after losing soil fertility the land is abandoned and a succession of different natural vegetation stages can be observed on the degraded soil. These successions can be used as autochthonous indicators of the degree of soil degradation as well as its recovery stage in the rehabilitation process. This study was carried out in the small La Lima watershed in Central Honduras on abandoned degraded hillside soils belonging to the Entisols order. Vegetation stages were classified by farmers and basic physical and chemical soil parameters were measured. Factor analysis of the data enabled the identification of three soil fertility indices, an Index of Soil Acidity and Aluminium Toxicity, an Index of Soil Protection and Macronutrient Availability, and an Index of Organic Reserve and Nutrient Retention, which along with other soil characteristics changed significantly with vegetation stages. Cause-effect relations between the fertility indices and other soil parameters were established and tested. Cluster analysis was used to group study plots by soil characteristics with similar vegetation associations, and the farmers' classification of vegetation stages were shown to be reasonable autochthonous indicators of soil degradation and rehabilitation. It was concluded that factors influencing organic matter content, nutrient supply, soil vegetation cover and soil compaction are critical for soil degradation and they must be managed appropriately for soil rehabilitation.
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