Abstract
AbstractSuccessful land restoration in impoverished rural environments may require adoption of new resource management strategies; however, feedbacks between local knowledge and introduced restoration technologies have rarely been articulated. We used interview scenarios to analyze the role of local knowledge in land restoration at a large‐scale, long‐term watershed rehabilitation and wet meadow restoration program in the highland Andes. Indigenous communities built over 30,000 check dams, terraces and infiltration ditches, and the density of erosion control structures and visible restoration varied greatly across participant communities. We developed a survey reaching across the highest restoration management intensity, lowest restoration management intensity, and non‐project (control) communities. We interviewed 49 respondents using 14 scenarios based on photos depicting biophysical phenomena related to land degradation and restoration. The scenarios generated 5,828 statements that were coded into 964 distinct concepts. As expected, respondents that built more erosion control structures had more detailed knowledge of check dam construction and ecosystem development following physical interventions. More significantly, there was a shift in the conceptualization of and attitudes toward land degradation and restoration. Respondents who built more erosion control structures were more likely to: attribute wetland hydrology to groundwater recharge rather than myth constructs about seeps and springs; attribute land degradation to human rather than mythological causes; and have more proactive attitudes regarding land restoration. Evidence suggests that when addressing severe land degradation or restoring ecosystem processes not readily observable by indigenous people, such as groundwater flow and wetland recharge, restoration success will depend on combining local and scientific knowledge.
Highlights
IntroductionBasalt-derived soils in the Hawaiian Islands do not change linearly in response to extrinsic differences in environmental forcing such as rainfall; rather their response is characterized by ‘‘pedogenic thresholds’’that represent abrupt and/or non-linear (but predictable) changes in soil properties and processes (Chadwick and Chorover 2001)
Basalt-derived soils in the Hawaiian Islands do not change linearly in response to extrinsic differences in environmental forcing such as rainfall; rather their response is characterized by ‘‘pedogenic thresholds’’that represent abrupt and/or non-linear changes in soil properties and processes (Chadwick and Chorover 2001)
(2003), and that are comparable to outputs of the toy model—base saturation, and the proportion of calcium remaining in the soil
Summary
Basalt-derived soils in the Hawaiian Islands do not change linearly in response to extrinsic differences in environmental forcing such as rainfall; rather their response is characterized by ‘‘pedogenic thresholds’’that represent abrupt and/or non-linear (but predictable) changes in soil properties and processes (Chadwick and Chorover 2001). For example; Chadwick et al (2003) demonstrated that base (nonhydrolyzing) cation saturation of soil exchange sites dropped from high values to 5 % or less (to 1 m depth) across a narrow range of precipitation values (between 1700 and 1900 mm of rainfall on a climate gradient from 250 to 3000 mm/year, using rainfall from Giambelluca et al 2012). This change was caused by depletion of primary minerals in higher rainfall sites, such that mineral weathering could not buffer atmospheric and biological acidity there. Additional thresholds associated with soil anaerobiosis (Chadwick and Chorover 2001; Miller et al 2001; Thompson et al 2011) and with biological uplift of plant macronutrients (Vitousek et al 2004) have been described as well
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