Effects of Potential Land Use Changes on Runoff and Soil Loss under Subtropical Conditions

摘要

The agriculture and pasture land expansion can destroy natural ecosystems such as Brazilian savannas (cerrado), an important regulator of energy and mass exchanges between surface and atmosphere. The consequent increase in the occurrence of pasture, sugarcane and bare soil land covers in areas before occupied by native cerrado may cause significant changes in soil erosion processes, impacting the environment in several ways. Here we investigate how the present dynamic of land use changes in Brazil influences the occurrence of erosive processes at a local scale. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the water erosion in experimental plots (20 m length, 5 m width, and 9% slope) in the context of potential land use changes,h cerrado, sugarcane, pasture andbare soil. The research was conducted during four years in an experimental site, located in the Itirapina municipality, inside the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Hence, meteorological variables, soil loss rates, and runoff were monitored inside experimental plots containing different land covers (Figure 1).