Cerdà, A.; Terol, E.; Daliakopoulos, IN. (2021). Weed cover controls soil and water losses in rainfed olive groves in Sierra de Enguera, eastern Iberian Peninsula. Journal of Environmental Management. 290:1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112516
Por favor, use este identificador para citar o enlazar este ítem: http://hdl.handle.net/10251/188042
Title:
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Weed cover controls soil and water losses in rainfed olive groves in Sierra de Enguera, eastern Iberian Peninsula
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Author:
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Cerdà, Artemi
Terol, Enric
Daliakopoulos, Ioannis N.
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UPV Unit:
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Universitat Politècnica de València. Departamento de Ingeniería Cartográfica Geodesia y Fotogrametría - Departament d'Enginyeria Cartogràfica, Geodèsia i Fotogrametria
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Issued date:
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Abstract:
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[EN] Soil erosion is a threat for the sustainability of agriculture and severely affects the Mediterranean crops. Olive groves are among the rainfed agriculture lands that exhibit soil and water losses due to the impact ...[+]
[EN] Soil erosion is a threat for the sustainability of agriculture and severely affects the Mediterranean crops. Olive groves are among the rainfed agriculture lands that exhibit soil and water losses due to the impact of unsustainable practices such as conventional tillage and herbicides abuse. To achieve a more sustainable olive oil production, alternative, greener crop management practices need to be tested in the field. Here, a weed cover (CW) treatment is tested at an olive tree plantation that has undergone conventional mechanical tillage for 20 years and results were compared against an adjacent control plantation that maintained tillage as a weed control strategy (CO). Both plantations were under the same tillage management for centuries and macroscopic analysis confirms they are otherwise comparable. Compared to the CO, where tilled soil cover was zero, 20 years of CW (weeds cover 64%; litter cover 5%) had led to significantly higher values of soil bulk density and soil organic matter. Results from rainfall simulation experiments at 55 mm h¿1 on 0.25 m2 plots under CO (N = 25) and CW (N = 25) show that as a result of the improved soil structure, CW (i) reduced soil losses by two orders of magnitude (140 times), (ii) decreased runoff yield by one order of magnitude (from 2.65 till 27.6% of the rainfall), (iii) significantly reduced runoff sediment concentration (from 18.6 till 1.43 g l¿1), and (iv) significantly delayed runoff generation (CO = 273 s; CW = 788 s). These results indicate that weed cover is a sustainable land management practice in Mediterranean olive groves and promotes sustainable agriculture production in mountainous areas under rainfed conditions, which are typically affected by high erosion rates such those found in the CO plots. Due to the spontaneous recovery of plant cover, we conclude that weed cover is an excellent nature-based solution to increase in the soil organic matter content and soil erosion reduction in rainfed olive orchards.
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Subjects:
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Soil erosion
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Rainfall simulation
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Weeds
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Runoff
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Soil
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Water
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Plants
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Cover
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Copyrigths:
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Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada (by-nc-nd)
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Source:
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Journal of Environmental Management. (issn:
0301-4797
)
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DOI:
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10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112516
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Publisher:
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Elsevier
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Publisher version:
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112516
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Project ID:
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info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/603498/EU
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC//T1EDK-03372//DRip Irrigation Precise-DR.I.P: Development of an Advanced Precision Drip Irrigation System for Tree Crops/
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/OCDE//JA00088807//Co-operative Research Programme 2016/
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Thanks:
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We thank Nathalie Elisseou Leglise for her kind management of our financial support. We wish to thank the Department of Geography members for their support along three decades to our research at the Soil Erosion and ...[+]
We thank Nathalie Elisseou Leglise for her kind management of our financial support. We wish to thank the Department of Geography members for their support along three decades to our research at the Soil Erosion and Degradation Research team (SEDER), with special thanks to the scientific researchers that as visitors from other research teams contributed to the SEDER research. And we also thank the Laboratory for Geomorphology technicians (Leon Navarro) for the key contribution to our research. The collaboration of the Geography and Environmental Sciences students was fruitful and enjoyable. The music of Feliu Ventura and Els Jovens was an inspiration during the writing of this paper at the COVID19 time. We thank the editor and the reviewers for the wise advises.
This research was funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 603498 (RECARE project). A.C. thanks the Co-operative Research programme from the OECD (Biological Resource Management for Sustainable Agricultural Systems) for its support with the 2016 CRP fellowship (OCDE TAD/CRP JA00088807). I.N.D. conducted this research in the framework of "DRip Irrigation Precise-DR.I.P: Development of an Advanced Precision Drip Irrigation System for Tree Crops" (Project Code: T1EDK-03372) which is co-financed by the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, under the call RESEARCHCREATE-INNOVATE.
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Type:
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Artículo
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