Degraded Landscapes in Hillside Systems with Agricultural Use: An Integrated Analysis to Establish Restoration Opportunities in Central Chile

Roxana Lebuy (), Diana Mancilla-Ruiz (), Hermann Manríquez and Francisco De la Barrera
Additional contact information
Roxana Lebuy: Centro Regional de Investigación e Innovación para la Sostenibilidad de la Agricultura y los Territorios Rurales (Ceres), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Quillota 2374631, Chile
Diana Mancilla-Ruiz: Centro Regional de Investigación e Innovación para la Sostenibilidad de la Agricultura y los Territorios Rurales (Ceres), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Quillota 2374631, Chile
Hermann Manríquez: Instituto de Geografía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso 2362807, Chile
Francisco De la Barrera: Departamento de Planificación Territorial y Sistemas Urbanos, Facultad de Ciencias Ambientales, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción 4070386, Chile

Land, 2022, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Hillside systems are key centers of ecological and cultural diversity, providing humanity with goods (e.g., food) and vital services (e.g., prevention of landslides) and sustaining 25% of terrestrial biodiversity. However, historical land use practices over these landscapes have contributed to their degradation. In this work, the hillside systems (i.e., slope > 5%) of the agricultural-rural landscape in the Coastal range of Central Chile (32° S–34° S) was analyzed and integrated analysis methods were used for the identification of areas that are degraded and have agricultural potential. The criteria used to identify them include morphometric parameters, current land cover/use, and legal protection status. The hillside systems represent a 74% of the study area, and while 1.2% is currently used for agriculture (13,473 ha), there are 3.2 thousand hectares that could be potentially recovered for agriculture, representing 0.4% of the hillside systems and 0.3% of the study area. In contrast, there are 773,131 ha of hillside systems with natural vegetation in need of conservation and/or protection, representing 69.4% of the study area (93.9% of the hillside systems). The last are key for the resilience of the entire landscape, helping to maintain critical processes linked to the productivity of agricultural areas, especially in the context of climate change and recurrent droughts.

Keywords: agriculture; soil degradation; restoration; slopes; hillside systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/1/5/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/1/5/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2022:i:1:p:5-:d:1008698

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().