PARTICIPATORY SOIL AND LAND EVALUATION MAPPING: …intranetdoc.epagri.sc.gov.br/producao_tecnico_cientifica/DOC_1212.pdf · Barra Bonita city centre is located at 730masl. Applying

International Conference on Soil Classification and Reclamation of Degraded Lands in Arid Environments

17-19 May, 2010 Abu Dhabi City, United Arab Emirates

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PARTICIPATORY SOIL AND LAND EVALUATION MAPPING: AN

ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO IMPROVE SOIL AND LAND EVALUATION

INFORMATION USEFULNESS TO DECISION MAKERS

Ivan Luiz Zilli BacicA, Juniele Rodrigues Pivetta

B and Roberta Pereira Martins

C

ACentro de Informações de Recursos Ambientais e de Hidrometeorologia de Santa

Catarina (CIRAM), Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária e Extensão Rural de Santa

Catarina (EPAGRI), Florianópolis, SC, Brasil, Emails [email protected];

[email protected]. BFellowship holder of Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

(CNPq) at Centro de Informações de Recursos Ambientais e de Hidrometeorologia de

Santa Catarina (CIRAM), Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária e Extensão Rural de

Santa Catarina (EPAGRI), Florianópolis, SC, Brasil. Email: [email protected]. CFellowship holder of Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

(CNPq) at Centro de Informações de Recursos Ambientais e de Hidrometeorologia de

Santa Catarina (CIRAM), Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária e Extensão Rural de

Santa Catarina (EPAGRI), Florianópolis, SC, Brasil. Email: [email protected].

Abstract Results of soil and land evaluation survey and mapping, which were expected to be

essential to rural land use and management planning, most of the time are not

adequately used by their potential users and rarely reach the decision makers. This may

reflect the poor communication between the main actors of the rural land use planning

process and inappropriate language of the presented results. When following traditional

methods, there is a risk that questions may be answered that have no relevance, and/or

that questions may not be answered properly according to the community expectation.

Therefore, it is important to change the strategies of communication and language of the

results to make information more useful to the decision makers. In this context, the

objective of this work was to test a participatory soil survey and land evaluation

methodology to make the information more useful and consequently more used by the

decision makers. This work shows the results obtained up to now in Barra Bonita

municipality, Santa Catarina State, southern Brazil. The study started with meetings,

interviews and questionnaires with local community, and the main demands for

information raised were the need for area expansion and management improvement of

pastures for milk production. But, instead of giving them information showing soil

types with technical language, and a general information about land evaluation, the

presented information shows what they want to know, namely spatial location of

potential new areas for pasture, what pasture type is better for different conditions and

what management is recommended for each area. In the final stage of the study,

participants positively evaluated the presented information.

INTRODUCTION

Land evaluation is the process of predicting land performance over time according to

specific land use types (VAN DIEPEN et al., 1991; ROSSITER, 1996). These

predictions should then be used to guide strategic land use and management decisions.

However, results from land inventories and soil and land evaluation surveys and

mapping, which were expected to be essential to rural land use and management



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planning, most of the time are not adequately used by their potential users and rarely

reach the decision makers (ROSSITER, 1996; BOUMA, 1999; BACIC, 2003; BACIC

et al., 2003). This may reflect the low relevance of many land evaluation and soil survey

reports, the poor communication between the main actors of the land use planning

process (e.g. soil surveyors, farmers and rural extensionists) and inappropriate language

of the presented results. When following traditional methods, there is a risk that

questions may be answered that have no relevance, and/or that questions may not be

answered properly according to the community expectation.

BACIC (2003) suggests that the process should begin with a careful analysis of the

environment where the stakeholders live, and consequently, where decisions are made,

following a participatory and demand-driven methodology. Besides, it is important to

change the strategies of communication and language of the results. Therefore, it is

expected that the decision makers will be given the information they consider more

relevant and with more appropriate language.

In this context, the objective of this work was to test a participatory soil survey and land

evaluation methodology to make the information more useful and consequently more

used by the decision makers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This work is part of the project “Demand-driven land evaluation”, that is being

developed in Santa Catarina State, southern Brazil, by the “Empresa de Pesquisa

Agropecuária e Extensão Rural de Santa Catarina – EPAGRI”, with financial support

from the “Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq”,

the “Ministério do Desenvolvimento Agrário/Secretaria de Agricultura Familiar –

MDA/SAF” and the “Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate a

Fome/Secretaria Nacional de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional – MDS/SESAN”. The

project started on December/2007 and will last for 30 months. Three municipalities

were selected according to the following main criteria: (1) location on three different

regions in Santa Catarina State; and (2) acceptance and support of local teams

(extensionists), local government and primarily the communities. Following these

criteria and after several meetings, the following municipalities were selected: Lontras

(Upper Itajaí River Valley), Luzerna (Mid-West) and Barra Bonita (West), where

traditional soil and land evaluation maps and reports are available and were barely used.

This work shows the results obtained up to now in Barra Bonita municipality. The study

area, “Pomba Branca Microcatchment”, was selected in a meeting with local leaders.

The first step was to raise the demands for interpreted information (e.g. land evaluation,

climatic risks, production systems, economic information, amongst others), according to

the local decision makers (farmers, extensionists and local leaders) needs. The demands

were raised in meetings, after a presentation, questionnaire application and interviews.

At this time, in order to understand better the local conditions, the farmers also

answered general questions about farm size, number of people working in the farm,

main rural activities, if they wanted to improve or even abandon these activities, as well

as if they had the intension to start a new activity and which information would be

necessary to make this decision. The demanded information was then organized and

ordered following the priorities, according to the urgency and frequency. This paper

deals with the main demands raised, namely the need for area expansion, recommended

pasture species and management improvement of pastures for milk production.



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The criteria to evaluate potential expansion areas for pasture and to indicate the better

species and management for different areas were defined based on literature and from

meetings with experts. The main criterion was defined as the slope degree. In areas with

slope degrees lower than 20%, it is possible to recommend both annual and perennial

pastures and no special conservation practices are needed. In this case, the land cover

produced by the pasture is considered to be enough to control the erosion. In areas with

slope degrees ranging from 20 to 30%, as the erosion susceptibility is higher, it is

recommended species with the following characteristics: erosion control potential, cattle

trampling resistance, resistant to environmental adversities, rapid growing and good soil

covering. In areas where the slope degrees vary from 30 to 45%, it is recommended the

use with perennial pastures due to the even higher erosion susceptibility and difficulties

to use agricultural mechanization. In areas where the slope degrees are higher than 45%,

it is not recommended pasture as land use, due to the high erosion susceptibility,

difficult workability and bad conditions to the animals. Another criterion to define

potential expansion areas was the land use. It was considered as potential areas only

those with annual crops, meadow and reforestation. Regarding the pasture management

improvement potential, it was considered the areas with continuous grazing (identified

as pastures in the land use map) associated to slope degree <30%.

As primary information, the soil and land use survey and mapping were used. The final

results about potential expansion areas and recommended species were obtained

overlaying the information described above.

Based on the criteria explained above, the following four classes were defined for the

study area:

• Class 1: < 20% slope degree associated to annual crops, meadow or reforestation;

• Class 2: 20-30% slope degree associated to annual crops, meadow or reforestation;

• Class 3: 30-45% slope degree associated to annual crops, meadow or reforestation;

• Class 4: <30% slope degree associated to pasture;

The Classes 1, 2 and 3 are considered the classes with potential for pasture area

expansion; Classe 4 is related to the potential for pasture management improvement.

Next, other meeting was organized, to present the demanded information, as well as to

assess the relevance and quality of the demanded information, to evaluate the tools and

methods used, and to re-evaluate the priorities according to the participants’ opinions.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The study area The study area is the Pomba Branca microcatchment (460 ha), which is representative

of most of the Barra Bonita Municipality (107 km2) in western Santa Catarina State,

Brazil (Figure 1).

Barra Bonita city centre is located at 730masl. Applying the Köppen system, Barra

Bonita is included in Cfa climate, mesothermal humid, without defined dry season and

warm summer (temperatures above 22oC in the warmest month) (Santa Catarina, 1986).

The underlying geologic formation is the “Serra Geral”, composed of dark grayish to

black basalt (Silva and Bortoluzzi, 1987). There are, according to IBGE (2000), 1862

people living in rural areas and 256 in urban areas. The principal land uses are annual

crops (mainly maize, cassava, tobacco and beans), pasture for milk production and

swine (Santa Catarina, 2005; IBGE, 2000; IBGE, 2006).

Pomba Branca Microcatchment is characterized by small family farms, as the farms are

mostly smaller than 20ha and most of the labour is from family members. The main



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commercial agricultural activities are milk production, tobacco, maize and beans. The

predominant soils in the study area are Cambissolos, Neossolos Litólicos and Neossolos

Regolíticos according to the Brazilian system (EMBRAPA, 2006), corresponding to

Inceptisols and Entisols in Soil Taxonomy (United States Department of Agriculture,

1999). Table 1 shows the Physiographic units distribution in the microcatchment, as

well as the main land evaluation classes according to the Santa Catarina System (Uberti

et al., 1991) and predominant slope degrees. The land use distribution in Pomba Branca

Microcatchment is shown in Table 2. The Physiographic and Land Use maps are shown

in Figures 2 and 3, respectively.

Land evaluation using traditional Santa Catarina method Land evaluations maps and reports in Santa Catarina State are prepared according to the

“Metodologia para Classificação da Aptidão de Uso das Terras do Estado de Santa

Catarina” (Methodology for Land Suitability Classification in Santa Catarina State)

(Uberti et al., 1991). It classifies land into one of five classes of physical suitability,

which are first defined in descriptive terms as follows:

• Class 1 - Good suitability for climatically adapted annual crops;

• Class 2 - Moderate suitability for climatically adapted annual crops;

• Class 3 - Restricted suitability for climatically adapted annual crops, moderate

suitability for fruit production and good suitability for pasture and reforestation;

• Class 4 - Restricted suitability for fruit production and moderate suitability for

pasture and reforestation;

• Class 5 - Permanent conservation areas.

To make the description operational, the following specific land characteristics are

measured for each map unit: slope gradient (d), effective soil depth (pr), stoniness (p),

susceptibility to erosion (e), fertility (f) and drainage conditions (h). These are

compared with defined limits for each suitability class, using the maximum limitation

method (Sys et al., 1991). There is no separate evaluation for different annual crops or

for fruit, horticulture, pasture, or forestry, and in addition there is no differentiation

between management levels or techniques.

Following this methodology and considering the land evaluation classes found in the

study area (Table 1), the recommendations for pasture would be that some areas have

good suitability (Classes 2 and 3) and others moderate suitability (Class 4). Therefore, it

is clear that those recommendations are not enough to answer to the farmers’ demands.

Potential areas for pasture expansion and recommended species and management Observing and analyzing information in Figure 4 and Table 3, it is possible to identify

the low potential of the study area to pasture expansion. Only 24,6 ha (5,3% of the study

area) is suitable to pasture expansion. Thus, this can just be an alternative for a small

number of farmers. But, considering that the main reason the farmers wanted to increase

their pasture area was to increase their profit, improving their financial conditions,

another possibility is to improve the pasture management. The potential in the area to

improve management is higher, as 30,4% (140 ha) of the study area currently with

pasture under continuous grazing could be changed to Voisin Grazing Management.

Following this recommended management, it will be possible to increase number of

animals, milk productivity, production and consequently the income. Table 4 shows the

recommended species and management for different conditions.



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But is also important to emphasize that, even the management improvement will not be

the best option to all the farms. As the labour in the study area is based on the family

labour, some farms will not have enough people to carry on the additional work

demands. In these cases, other land use alternatives should be considered in following

stages of the project presented here.

CONCLUSIONS

The presented information showing clearly what the farmers wanted to know, instead of

giving them the traditional information showing soil types with technical language, and

general information about land evaluation, was positively evaluated by them. They

easily understood and considered the information useful to help them to make their

decisions.

As the specific conditions of each farm are different, there are no recommendations that

fit every individual situation. This paper showed alternatives like the potential for area

expansion and the management improvement of pastures, as possible options for some

farmers, but they should also receive a set of other realistic land use alternatives from

which they could choose from.

The methodology is based on several negotiation rounds, and up to the end of the

project it is expected to find in a collective way, different land use and management

techniques, new options to increase incomes without environmental damages,

improving the rural families’ social inclusion and their life quality.

REFERENCES

Bacic I.L.Z. 2003. Demand-driven land evaluation: with case studies in Santa Catarina,

Brazil. (Wageningen University and ITC: Wageningen and Enschede, The

Netherlands).

Bacic, I.L.Z., D.G. Rossiter and A.K. Bregt. 2003. The use of land evaluation

information by land use planners and decision-makers: a case study in Santa

Catarina, Brazil. Soil Use and Management 19: 12-18.

Bouma, J. 1999. Land evaluation for landscape units. In: Handbook of soil science, ed

Sumner, M.E., CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, pp E393-E412.

EMBRAPA - Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária. 2006. Centro Nacional de

Pesquisa de Solos. Sistema brasileiro de classificação de solos. 2.ed. Rio de Janeiro.

306p.

IBGE. 2000. Censo Demográfico do Brasil 2000 - Características da População e dos

Domicílios: Resultados do universo. Rio de Janeiro, IBGE. Available at:

http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/censo2000/universo.php?tipo=31

o/tabela13_1.shtm&paginaatual=1&uf=42&letra=B. Verified on March, 2010.

IBGE. 2006. Censo Agropecuário 2006. Rio de Janeiro, IBGE. Available at:

http://www.sidra.ibge.gov.br/bda/pesquisas/ca/default.asp?o=2&i=P. Verified on:

March, 2010.

Rossiter, D.G. 1996. A theoretical framework for land evaluation (with discussion).

Geoderma 72: 165-202.



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Santa Catarina. 1986. Atlas de Santa Catarina. Rio de Janeiro: Aerofoto Cruzeiro. 173p.

Santa Catarina. 2005. Secretaria de Estado da Agricultura e Desenvolvimento Rural.

LAC – Levantamento agropecuário de Santa Catarina: 2002-2003. Florianópolis:

Instituto Cepa-SC, Available at:

http://cepa.epagri.sc.gov.br/Publicacoes/lac_fev_2005.pdf. Verified on March, 2010.

Silva, L.C. and C.A. Bortoluzzi. 1987. Mapa geológico do Estado de Santa Catarina

escala 1:500000: texto explicativo. DNPM - 11o Distrito/Secr. Ciência Tecnologia,

Minas e Energia - Coordenadoria de Recursos Minerais, Florianópolis.

Sys, C., E. Van Ranst and J. Debaveye. 1991. Land evaluation, Part 1 : Principles in

land evaluation and crop production calculations. General Administration for

Development Cooperation, Brussels.

Uberti, A.A.A., I.L.Z. Bacic, J.A.V. Panichi, J.A. Laus Neto, J.M. Moser, M. Pundek

and S.L. Carriao. 1991. Metodologia para classificação da aptidão de uso das terras

do Estado de Santa Catarina. EMPASC/ACARESC, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina.

United States Department of Agriculture. 1999. Soil taxonomy: a basic system of soil

classification for making and interpreting soil surveys. Agriculture Handbook 436.

United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service,

Washington, D.C.

Van Diepen, C.A., H. Van Keulen, J. Wolf and J.A.A. Berkhout. 1991. Land evaluation:

from intuition to quantification. In: Advances In: Soil Science, ed Stewart, B.A.,

Springer, New York, pp 139-204.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by CNPq, MDA/SAF, MDS/SESAN and Epagri.



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TABLES

Table 1. Physiographic units distribution, slope degrees and land evaluation classes in

Pomba Branca Microcatchment.

Physiographic Units

Area (ha)

Area (%)

Slope Degrees (%)

Land evaluation classes according to Uberti et al. (1991)

Ee – Erosional

Hillslope

216 46,9 >30 4e (3dp)

Eec - (Erosional-

Colluvial Hillslope

109 23,7 20-30 3pe (3prp) (3dp)

Ce - Erosional

Summit

10 2,2 0-8 3prp

Ece1 – Colluvial-

Erosional Hillslope

1

96 20,9 0-8 2pr (2p)

Ece2 – Colluvial-

Erosional Hillslope

2

19 4,1 8-20 2de

Ep – Step Hillslope 10 2,2 8-20 2p (3prp)

TOTAL 460 100,0 - -

Table 2. Land Use in Pomba Branca Microcatcment.

Land Use Área (ha) Area (%)

Buildings 0,7 0,2

Fruit Trees 0,8 0,2

Water reservoir 6,0 1,3

Pasture 250,0 54,3

Meadow 15,0 3,3

Annual Crops 63,5 13,8

Forest 116,0 25,2

Reforestation 8,0 1,7

Total 460,0 100,0



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Table 3. Potential areas for pasture expansion and management improvement.

Class Area (ha) Area (% of the study area) Class 1 5,2 1,1

Class 2 7,8 1,7

Class 3 11,6 2,5

Class 4 140,0 30,4



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Table 4. Recommended pasture species and management

Slope Degree (%)

Grass Pasture Legume Pasture Recommended management

0 – 20% Avena sativa L. (Aveia branca);

Avena strigosa Sereb (Aveia

preta); Secale cereale L.

(Centeio); Lolium perenne L.

(Azevém); Braquiaria

decumbens Stapf. Prain

(Braquiária); Paspalum notatum

(Grama comum); Cynodon

nlemfuensis Vanderryst

(Tifton); Zea mays L. (Milho);

Sorghum Vulgare Pers (Sorgo);

Pennisetum purpureum Schum

(Capim Elefante); Festuca

arundinaceae Schreb (Festuca);

Braquiaria mutica (Angola);

Braquiaria humidicola

(Humidicola); Panicum

maximum (Colonião).

Vicia sativa

L.(Ervilhaca); Lotus

corniculatus

(Cornichão);

Trifolium repens L.

(Trevo branco);

Trifolium pratense

L.(Trevo vermelho);

Arahis pintoi

(Amendoim

forrageiro).

Voisin Grazing

Management

20 – 30% Braquiaria decumbens Stapf.

Prain (Braquiária); Cynodon

nlemfuensis Vanderryst

(Tifton); Pennisetum

purpureum Schum (Capim

Elefante); Festuca

arundinaceae Schreb (Festuca);

Braquiaria mutica (Angola);


(Humidicola); Panicum

maximum (Colonião).

Lotus corniculatus

(Cornichão); Arahis

pintoi (Amendoim

forrageiro)

Voisin Grazing

Management

30 – 45% Panicum maximum (Colonião);


(Humidicola); Braquiaria

mutica (Angola); Pennisetum

purpureum Schum (Capim

Elefante); Cynodon nlemfuensis

Vanderryst (Tifton).

Arahis pintoi

(Amendoim

forrageiro)

Continuous

Grazing



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FIGURES

Figure 1. Location of Pomba Branca Microcatchment in Barra Bonita Municipality,

Santa Catarina State, southern Brazil.



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Figure 2. Physiographic map



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Figure 3. Land use map



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Figure 4. Potential areas for pasture expansion and recommended species and

management

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