Aptitud forestal de las tierras no agrícolas del norte de la provincia de Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Abstract

The objective of this work was to classify, quantify and map the land suitability of lowlands lands (or non suitable lands for annual-crop) of the N-NE of the province of Buenos Aires. For this, the Automated Land Evaluation System (ALES) software proposed by FAO was applied. We evaluated the following species: E. camaldulensis, E. dunnii; E. saligna, E. tereticornis, E. viminalis y los generos Salix spp. y Populus spp using the soil map at 1:50,000 scale as source of soil information. The depth of water-table fluctuation, soil pH, soil texture and drainage, among other soil properties, were used as diagnostic criteria. The results showed that 92,089 ha were suitable for E. camaldulensis, from which 13% have not limitations. There were 91,841 ha suitable for E. tereticornis, where 13% were very suitable. The area suitable for E. saligna and E. viminalis reached 40,718 ha, from which 30% are very suitable. These two species present climatic restrictions in the study area due to the susceptibility to cold in the implantation period. E. dunnii reached 40,718 ha of lands, but none were very suitable land. The genus Populus had 42,000 suitable hectares, being 29% of them very apt. For Salix the resulting area was 47,243 ha. These results show that there is an important area of land potentially suitable for the development of a forest basin in the region without competing with annual crops.