Recovery of soil hydraulic properties after forest restoration in the Atlantic Forest

• Ano de defesa: 2019
• Autor(a) principal: Lozano Baez, Sergio Esteban
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Forest restoration; Hidrologia; Hydrology; Infiltração; Infiltration; Propriedades do solo; Restauração florestal; Soil properties
• Link de acesso: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/11/11150/tde-29072019-093104/

Knowledge about forests undergoing restoration across the world is becoming increasingly essential due to the benefits of restoring forest for ecosystem functions related to water, such as water infiltration. Although there is a growing literature regarding the biodiversity and some ecosystem functions in forest undergoing restoration, soil responses in these forests remain virtually unknown. Moreover, few works have analyzed the effects on soil of different restoration approaches (e.g., planting of native species and natural regeneration). In this context, the main objective of this work was to evaluate and gain a better understanding of the effects of different forest restoration methodologies on the recovery of soil physical and hydraulic properties, more specifically on water infiltration. In the first part of this study (Chapter 2) was conducted a systematic review of scientific literature, reporting and discussing the infiltration measures in tropical forests undergoing restoration by tree planting. The results of this review indicated that infiltration was likely to increase after tree planting; that infiltration recovery was faster when agriculture was the prior land use; that clayey soils (>30% clay) tended to exhibit greater increases in infiltration after tree planting; and that restored forests after 10 years evidenced more similar infiltration values with the pre-disturbance soil conditions (e.g., natural reference forest). The following two parts of the thesis (Chapter 3 and 4) were based on a restoration program using a high-diversity mix of native plantings in the county of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. In the Chapter 3 was investigated the effect of forest restoration on saturated soil hydraulic conductivity (Ks), verifying the Ks recovery to the pre-disturbance soil conditions. We sampled field Ks under three land-cover types: (i) a pasture; (ii) a restored forest of 9 years of age; and (iii) a remnant forest patch. Our results showed that Ks recovery differ markedly among the forests undergoing restoration; and that soil attributes and Ks recovery are influenced by the duration and intensity of land use prior to forest restoration. In the Chapter 4 we assessed the effects of land use history on the recovery of Ks, soil and vegetation attributes, comparing active vs. passive restoration (e.g., assisted restoration). In these chapters we conclude that forest restoration actions may improve soil physical and hydraulic properties, but in some cases a complete recovery to reference levels can be difficult, especially when land use was more intense prior to forest restoration actions. It is very important to understand soil recovery in forests undergoing restoration on different climate, forest and soil types. Thereby, in future research long-term studies are essential, which should focus in the water movement through the soil profile and aiming to understand how the forest restoration can recover the infiltration process, also including landscape scale (e.g., watershed).