Soil porosity for three typical surfaces in the Nazas River upper watershed

Authors

  • José Luis González Barrios Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias, México
  • Guillermo González Cervantes Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias, México
  • Eduardo Chávez Ramírez Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias, México

Keywords:

soil porosity, image analysis, soil compaction, watershed management

Abstract

This work presents a soil porosity study for three typical soil surfaces in the Nazas River upper watershed. The soil surfaces studied were: pine-oak forest, grassland and bare soil due to cattle trampling. Using image analyses, soil porosity in undisturbed soil monoliths was studied taking into account the size and shape of pores. Results show higher soil porosity in forest and grassland surfaces (0.6 and 0.43 m3/m3, respectively), with significant macro-porosity (irregular-shaped pores larger than 2 mm2) associated with pine-oak humus and grass roots, and reduced porosity in bare soil (0.32 m3/m3), with significant micro-porosity (round-shaped pores) due to compaction and soil degradation. This work shows soil porosity features related to current land use in the Nazas River upper watershed.

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Published

2012-02-15

How to Cite

González Barrios, J. L., González Cervantes, G., & Chávez Ramírez, E. (2012). Soil porosity for three typical surfaces in the Nazas River upper watershed. Tecnología Y Ciencias Del Agua, 3(1), 21–32. Retrieved from https://www.revistatyca.org.mx/index.php/tyca/article/view/2

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 1 (2012)

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License

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By Instituto Mexicano de Tecnología del Agua is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on a work at https://www.revistatyca.org.mx/. Permissions beyond what is covered by this license can be found in Editorial Policy.

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