Interrelationships between Land Abandonment and Land Degradation: A Case from the Ecuadorian Andes

Harden, Carol P.

doi:10.2307/3673950

Cited by 113 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…In most of the country, the terraced landscapes lost their original function, with the exception of particular areas in which their function has been preserved or renewed for specific reasons, such as the growing of precious crops. This type of abandonment is not restricted to Italy [9,10], as is confirmed in literature [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Section: Historical Information and Aim Of The Researchsupporting

confidence: 60%

Territorial Analysis of the Agricultural Terraced Landscapes of Tuscany (Italy): Preliminary Results

et al. 2015

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Abstract:Terraced areas have existed in Italy since ancient times, and they continue to be characteristic elements of the cultural identity of the country. The progressive abandonment of rural areas and farmland that began in the 1960s has led to the disintegration and disappearance of many terraces, representing one of the problems connected with the deterioration of the historic Tuscan agricultural landscape. This research aims to provide a contribution to the territorial analysis of the agricultural terraced landscapes at a regional scale. The preliminary phase of the study involved setting up a working method in Geographic Information System (GIS) for the quantitative definition of the population. Afterwards, for the territorial analysis at a more detailed scale, a method was devised to identify the areas of greater significance in terms of a terracing intensity index. The final results concerned considerations on the distribution of the terraced landscapes and analyses related to land use and the main environmental parameters of the most representative terraced systems.

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Section: Historical Information and Aim Of The Researchsupporting

confidence: 60%

Territorial Analysis of the Agricultural Terraced Landscapes of Tuscany (Italy): Preliminary Results

et al. 2015

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“…Following fallow, the soil structure is deteriorating rapidly due to (i) sealing and crusting of the soil surface by raindrop impact in the absence of surface vegetation cover, and (ii) trampling and compaction of the upper soil horizons by grazing cattle. The link between land abandonment and degradation was already highlighted by Harden (1996). Her rainfall simulation experiments (1993,1996,2001) in the Southern Ecuadorian Andes indicated the risk of abandoned land for rapid runoff generation and soil erosion.…”

Section: Effect Of Land Use and Management On Runoff Generationmentioning

confidence: 96%

Runoff generation in a degraded Andean ecosystem: Interaction of vegetation cover and land use

Molina

Govers

Vanacker³

et al. 2007

CATENA

144

101

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Tropical mountain regions are affected by rapid land use/-cover change, which may threaten their (eco-)hydrological functions. Although there is a growing interest in evaluating the effect of land use/-cover change on mountain hydrology, quantitative assessments of the impact of land use/-cover on hydrological processes are hampered by the lack of field measurements characterizing runoff generation processes. In this paper, we present results from field experiments of rainfall runoff mechanisms in the southern Ecuadorian Andes. A rainfall simulator was used to quantify the hydrological response of distinct land use/-cover types to intense rainfall (about 40 mm/h). The rainfall runoff experiments indicate that degraded and abandoned land generate surface runoff within a few minutes after the start of the rainfall event. These lands have a very rapid and sharp hillslope hydrological response, as Hortonian overland flow is the dominant runoff generation mechanism. In contrast, surface runoff on arable and rangelands is rare, as their soils are characterized by a high infiltration capacity (i.e. N 29 mm/h). Our experiments provide evidence that runoff generation in degraded Andean ecosystems is mainly controlled by the surface vegetation cover and land management. When reducing the surface vegetation cover, the soil is increasingly affected by rapid hillslope runoff as the presence of large amounts of smectites in the outcropping soft rocks makes the material very prone to sealing and crusting, thereby enhancing runoff generation.

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“…Thus, land abandonment has often occurred in mountainous areas where labor losses could not easily be replaced by the use of machinery (MacDonald et al, 2000). Examples of this phenomenon are widespread, coming from Swiss mountains (Gellrich et al, 2007b;Gellrich and Zimmermann, 2007), the Alps (Gellrich et al, 2008;Walther, 1986;Gehrig-Fasel et al, 2007), the Pyrenees (Mottet et al, 2006), and the Ecuadorian Andes (Harden, 1996). In addition to steep slope , other factors leading to abandonment include poor soil (Sluiter and De Jong, 2007;Díaz et al, 2011) and difficult road access (Gellrich et al, 2007b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land abandonment under rural restructuring in China explained from a cost-benefit perspective

Zhang

Song

et al. 2016

Journal of Rural Studies

104

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a b s t r a c tChina has experienced socio-economic transitions in recent decades, featuring a large amount of rural labor migrating into urban areas. As a response, rural land use has been restructured across large areas. In this process, vast amounts of land have been abandoned due to labor loss, especially in mountainous areas. Understanding how land attributes determine which land parcels are abandoned is essential to sustainable development of rural areas. Here we examine how two main farmland parcel attributes, farmland-to-housing distance and land quality, by affecting farming costs and benefits, and thereby profits, determine farmland abandonment. We constructed a semi-empirical crop profit model based on output benefits and input costs derived from household survey data from mountainous Wulong County, Chongqing Province, China. With this model, crop profits can be estimated and in turn the farmland-tohousing distances at which farming profits diminish to zero ("zero profit distance", abbreviated as "ZPD") can be identified. Based on the hypothesis that land will be abandoned when cultivation cannot make profits, ZPD values can be used to predict patterns of abandonment. At current price levels, the ZPD values are 5.94 km, 3.84 km, 2.52 km and 1.48 km for first-class, second-class, third-class and fourthclass land, respectively. Overall, the observed occurrence of land abandonment in relation to farmland-to-housing distance and land quality is concordant with the model's predictions, supporting the underlying hypothesis that land will be abandoned when the farmland-to-housing distance exceeds the ZPD. These findings may serve as an important tool for predicting land abandonment and identifying countermeasures for mountainous areas.

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Interrelationships between Land Abandonment and Land Degradation: A Case from the Ecuadorian Andes

Cited by 113 publications

References 7 publications

Territorial Analysis of the Agricultural Terraced Landscapes of Tuscany (Italy): Preliminary Results

Territorial Analysis of the Agricultural Terraced Landscapes of Tuscany (Italy): Preliminary Results

Runoff generation in a degraded Andean ecosystem: Interaction of vegetation cover and land use

Land abandonment under rural restructuring in China explained from a cost-benefit perspective

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