Person: Rescia Perazzo, Alejandro Javier
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First Name
Alejandro Javier
Last Name
Rescia Perazzo
Affiliation
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Faculty / Institute
Ciencias Biológicas
Department
Biodiversidad, Ecología y Evolución
Area
Ecología
Identifiers
3 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
Item Ecological and economic sustainability in olivegroves with different irrigation management and levels of erosion: a case study(Sustainability, 2019) Rodríguez Sousa, Antonio Alberto; Barandica Fernández, Jesús María; Rescia Perazzo, Alejandro JavierIn the last 50 years, both the agricultural labour force and irrigated land area have increased almost eightfold in Spain. The main objective of irrigation, in the short term, is to increase agricultural production. However, in the long term, the environmental externalities of irrigation and its direct relationship with soil erosion processes are more uncertain and still poorly studied. In this study, in an olive-growing region of Andalusia, Spain, the variation of several soil parameters related to irrigation and erosion levels was analysed. The results showed that irrigation, while increasing the productive level of the olive groves, entails a progressive alteration of the soil, modifying physical aspects (greater compaction and humidity of the soil together with lower gravel content, porosity and soil weight) and chemical aspects (reduction of the organic matter of the soil and the content of nitrates) that can aggravate the consequences of the erosive processes. In the long term, the productive benefit attributed to irrigation could be unsustainable from an ecological and, consequently, economic point of view. In addition, the lack of sustainability of olive irrigation agroecosystems could be exacerbated by the future restrictive impacts of climate change on water resources in Mediterranean environments. This situation demands spatial planning and alternative management based on soil conservation and rational and efficient forms of irrigation to ensure the sustainability of olive groves and their economic viability.Item Land-use and spatial resilience changes in the Spanish olive socio-ecological landscape(Applied Geography, 2020) Ortega Quero, Marta; Pascual, Susana; Elena Roselló, Ramón; Rescia Perazzo, Alejandro JavierThe spatial structure of agricultural landscapes can affect crop resilience to potential pest development. Previous studies have found several spatial landscape metrics related to the abundance of the olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae, and these were combined to elaborate a spatial resilience index. In this paper, this index was calculated for olive landscapes all over Spain, for four years spanning a 50-year temporal range (1956, 1984, 1998 and 2008), using a network of 64 16-km2 plots representing olive landscapes within a bio-geo-climatic gradient. The resilience index was then modified adapting it through the weighting of spatial landscape metrics determined from the monitoring of this time-series analysis. The results showed that the values of spatial resilience of olive landscapes is predominantly low in southern Spain and medium in northeast and central Spain. The value of the index increased throughout the time-series considered, but not in the south. Expansion and concentration of olive groves, diversification of land uses, and fragmentation of landscapes have been the driving forces behind the evolution and current spatial structure of olive landscapes. The weighted resilience index constitutes a valuable tool for the socio-ecological planning of olive landscapes.Item Assessment of agri-environmental externalities in spanish socio-ecological landscapes of olive groves(Sustainability, 2018) López-Pintor Alcón, Antonio; Sanz-Cañada, Javier; Salas, Ernesto; Rescia Perazzo, Alejandro JavierTraditional agricultural systems and their spatial context constitute socio-ecological landscapes for their long co-evolutionary history. However, these systems not only generate positive but also negative agri-environmental externalities, such as soil erosion, diffuse pollution and potential wild biodiversity degradation. In this paper, we present a methodological approach for developing and testing indicators to estimate the effects of these externalities, especially designed to be used to help guide land-use policy changes. Our results show that the indicators proposed can recognize the different environmental situations posed by the three selected study areas, in terms of potential erosion and diffuse pollution, as well as in the actual agri-environmental externalities assessment. As expected, they also respond to the changes in land use and management introduced by two scenarios, ecological and productive. Although the erosion and diffuse pollution indicators showed a linear response, the diversity indicator showed a non-linear response, which highlights the importance of the spatial structure of landscape in agri-environmental assessment. In fact, several ecological processes can be affected by landscape spatial structure, potentially giving unexpected results both in terms of indicators and of real impact of agri-environmental externalities. Therefore, some landscape structure assessment should accompany that of externalities when considering land-use policy objectives.