The Namche Conference: May 24-26, 2003 People, Park, and Mountain Ecotourism Participants and Presentations: Guillermo F. García Zamora

Guillermo F. García Zamora (Chacras de Coria, Mendoza, Argentina) Email: andinito1@yahoo.es OR gzamora@irrigacion.gov.ar AbstractComparative study of nutrients contents and physical properties of natural hillsides and abandoned terraces in Alpujarras, Sierra Nevada, Spain. In the Alpujarras, during a lot of centuries, the man inhabited this mountainous remote area of the southern Spain, working hard aganist the natural conditions to obtain: food and manufactures to survive, in some cases using channels to conduct the water from the upper parts to irrigate crops in the lower areas of the mountains. During the 60´s, an important exodus of people started, leaving there farms, and finishing with the ancient agricultural traditions of production. To know what kind of land use the agricultors of the mountain done, we compared the site fertility and physicals properties of abandoned terraces soils, and natural hillsides of the mountain without apparent human soil modifiaction, in the south face of Sierra Nevada. The results of the analysis were tested by Krusakl- wallis test, to find statistical difference between samples of both kind of soils. Soil fertility, including Nitrogen, Phosphur and Potasiun, have no significance difference between agricultural and natural soils of the upper side of the mountain. We also compared physical properties as pH, and electric conductivity, plus the organic matter content, finding, that pH and E.C present significally different, suggesting that water irrigation could be responsible of the increasing values of salts and alkalinity founded in agricultural soils. There were no difference in organic matter content. The result support the hypothesis that people of Alpujarras made a sustainable use of the land to obtain agricultural products, reflected in the site fertility of terraces, and the low impact and reversible modification of salt content, produced by contribution of the water used to irrigate the crops.

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