Luis Mario Tapia Vargas*1 , A
Abstract
Lake Patzcuaro extinction is being caused by the prevalent hillslope agricultural system. Conservation tillage is an alternative to reduce erosion and runoff in hillslope agriculture. The aim of this work is to demonstrate that conservation tillage reduces runoff and soil losses, as well as identify erodability and infiltration parameters under rainfall simulation. Simulation was carried out in Patzcuaro lake watershed. Rainfall simulation was performed in two runoff plots, conservation tillage (CT) and conventional tillage (TT) under dry and wet soil conditions. Rill (Kr), interill erosionability (Ki), shear (τ) and critic shear stress (τc), and hydraulic conductivity (Ks) were computed for the two treatments. Results indicated that erosion parameters are directly related to erosion susceptibility, TT was higher susceptibility (Ki= 1,262,608 kg s m-4; Kr= 0.08 sm-1; τc=1.3 Pa) than CT (Ki= 2,552 kg s m-4; Kr= 0.0002 sm-1; τc=2.1 Pa). Hydraulic conductivity was higher in CT Ks=82.8 (dry), and Ks=64.4 mm/h (wet), than TT 48.6 (dry) and 55.2 mm/h (wet).