Effects of 30-year-old Aleppo pine plantations on runoff,soil erosion,and plant diversity in a semi-arid landscape in south eastern Spain |
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Authors: | E. Chirino,A. Bonet,J. Bellot,J.R. Sá nchez |
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Affiliation: | 1. Fundación Centro de Estudios Ambientales del Mediterráneo (CEAM), Spain;2. Department of Ecology, University of Alicante, Apdo. 99, 03080, Alicante, Spain |
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Abstract: | Forest management policies in Mediterranean areas have traditionally encouraged land cover changes, with the establishment of tree cover (Aleppo pine) in natural or degraded ecosystems for soil conservation purposes: to reduce soil erosion and to increase the vegetation structure. In order to evaluate the usefulness of these management policies on reduced erosion in semi-arid landscapes, we compared 5 vegetation cover types (bare soil, dry grassland, shrublands, afforested dry grasslands and afforested thorn shrublands), monitored in 15 hydrological plots (8 × 2 m), in the Ventós catchment (Alicante, SE Spain), over 4 years (1996 to 1999). Each cover type represented a different dominant patch of the vegetation mosaic on the north-facing slopes of this catchment. The results showed that runoff coefficients of vegetated plots were less than 1% of the precipitation volume; whereas runoff in denuded areas was nearly 4%. Soil losses in vegetation plots averaged 0.04 Mg ha− 1 year− 1 and increased 40-fold in open-land plots. The evaluation of these forest management policies, in contrast with the natural vegetation communities, suggests that: (1) thorn shrublands and dry grassland communities with vegetation cover could control runoff and sediment yield as effectively as Aleppo pine afforestation in these communities, and (2) afforestation with a pine stratum improved the stand's vertical structure resulting in pluri-stratified communities, but reduced the species richness and plant diversity in the understorey of the plantations. |
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Keywords: | Runoff Erosion rate Afforestation Semi-arid Soil erosion |
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