Dinâmica de água em latossolo típico dos tabuleiros costeiros sob diferentes sistemas de uso

Abstract

Soil management practices are a known source of anthropogenic interference, which change the physical and hydrological properties of soil, when compared with the native environment. However, in addition to the negative affects on those properties, management practices can often improve or even lead to different levels of soil recovery. The goal of this study was to assess the water dynamics in a typical latosol of coastal plains under four different uses: natural forest (NF), regeneration area (RA), no-tillage system (NT) and conventional planting (CP), all located in Cruz das Almas, Bahia. In each area, 80 degraded soil samples were collected and 400 non-degraded samples at two depths (0.0-0.20 and 0.20-0.40m). The degraded samples were used to assess the texture, particles density, organic matter, and the average diameter of soil aggregates and the non-degraded samples were used to assess the soil density, macroporosity, microporosity, total porosity, mechanical resistance to penetration (to 100 kPa) and the saturated soil hydraulic conductivity. These attributes were assessed by statistical univariate, multivariate and geostatistics methods; we also assessed the basic infiltration speed (BIS) and the adjustment of the Kostiakov, Kostiakov-Lewis and Horton models to BIS. Our results show that the physical and hydrological attributes had the best performances were, by descending order, the NF, RA, NT, and CP systems, with a strong to moderate degree of spatial dependence; the highest infiltration speed followed the same order among the systems, with a better adjustment to the Horton model.