Abandono rural en la Zona Este de Mendoza
Drylands are characterized by scarce, infrequent and irregular rainfall; a high thermal amplitude between day and night; and soils with little organic matter and insufficient water. The limited and seasonal availability of water resources, coupled with low primary productivity and poor soils, make t...
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
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| Publicado: |
2019
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| Acceso en línea: | https://bdigital.uncu.edu.ar/fichas.php?idobjeto=14332 |
| Sumario: | Drylands are characterized by scarce, infrequent and irregular rainfall; a high thermal amplitude between day and night; and soils with little organic matter and insufficient water. The limited and seasonal availability of water resources, coupled with low primary productivity and poor soils, make these ecosystems inherently fragile. In this way, climatic variations and unsustainable human activities can trigger processes of degradation, known as desertification. Considering the impact that these processes can have on the welfare of the local community, it is urgent to design sustainable management measures that reverse these effects. When the implementation of such measures is no longer feasible, restoration measures must be applied. In particular, productive restoration refers to the recovery of some elements of the structure and function of the original ecosystem, together with a sustainable production that generates economic goods for the local population. Considering that water is a limiting factor in drylands, agricultural production in these regions depends on different irrigation systems, which transform arid ecosystems into irrigated cultivable areas known as "oases". A problem that has not been thoroughly approached by academia, but it is common to all Mendoza's oases, is the phenomenon of crop abandonment. Despite years of gaining land from the desert and the costly installation of productive infrastructure, farmers are forced to stop cultivating and look for alternative livelihoods. In some cases, desertification leads to the over-exploitation of land and its abandonment. On other occasions, rural abandonment, determined by biophysical or socio-economic causes, triggers processes of land degradation. In any case, it is essential to know the causes of abandonment, the level of degradation of these lands and the feasibility of reversing these processes through the implementation of productive restoration measures. In this sense, the general objective of this line of research is to generate tools to avoid rural abandonment and promote the recovery of abandoned agricultural plots in the Eastern Zone of the Northern Oasis of the province of Mendoza. |
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