Evaluación de la calidad y salud del suelo de los ríos Zamora y Zamora Huayco, subcuenca del río Zamora, cantón Loja - Ecuador

Abstract

The soil is an essential resource for the environment sustainability and thus for humanity, however, its degradation is causing that it reaches critical limits. Currently, it has become essential the implementation of methods, which allow making a deduction of the general characteristics of the soil. Therefore, in the present investigation, valid, viable field tests have been identified, that allow in a practical way to analyze the quality and health of the soil through the analysis of physical, chemical and biological factors, in this way immediate results can be obtained that allow a constant monitoring of soils, thus allowing problems to be identified and manage activities for their sustainable use. The soil quality and health guide of the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA has been taken as a basis, where the procedures to measure the different physical, chemical and biological parameters were obtained, as well as standardized tables that allow interpreting the data obtained in the investigation. The study was carried out on different soil covers (soil cover with urban influence, crop, grassland and wild vegetation) along the banks of the Zamora and Zamora Huayco rivers from Loja-Ecuador. The aim of the research was to determine the quality and health of the soil, through in situ tests and establish a relationship with the different soil uses regarding to the presence of earthworms, to evaluate their capacity as bioindicators. For the statistical analysis of the quantitative variables, the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was used in a 4 x4 factorial arrangement, where the factors in the study analyzed were soil cover and altitude. Descriptive statistics were applied for the qualitative variables. It was obtained as a result that the health and quality of the study soil were close to or within the ranges established as ideal. It also be defined that the soil condition is conditioned to the management and the use given to each soil cover, thus, the crop cover presented fewer ideal conditions regarding to the others. A moderate positive relationship was also identified in relation to the population density of earthworms and soil covers, thus being able to affirm its capacity as a bioindicator.