Apoyo al proceso de monitoreo y evaluación del impacto de las estrategias de restauración de arbustales y bosques secundarios del plan piloto de restauración El Quimbo (Huila - Colombia)

Abstract

Tropical dry forests in Colombia have suffered a serious decrease in their coverage, causing them to be in danger, this makes them key ecosystems for conservation. The "El Quimbo" hydroelectric plant located in the department of Huila has an environmental compensation area of 11,079 hectares of tropical dry forest, where an Ecological Restoration Program was implemented, which has a Pilot Monitoring Plan in 140 hectares raised with the in order to know the effectiveness of the restoration program. It is currently in the evaluation stage of its effectiveness, in the demonstration phase of the impacts of restoration strategies.

The present degree work focused on evaluating the performance of the planted material and the potential impact of the restoration strategies implemented in the shrublands and secondary forests of the central and southern zones of the compensation area: Edge expansion, Enrichment and Multinurses; For this, a database was structured that contained all the monitoring information of the three strategies mentioned, with which the Average Annual Increment (IMA) in height and 5 diameter at the height of the base (DAB) was calculated, in addition to the survival rates for the species and the average obtained according to the different strategies. The Edge Enlargement and Multinurse strategies presented survival rates above 80%, the latter being the one that presented the highest performance with 49.5 cm in height and 5.5 mm in DAB, while Enrichment obtained an average rate of 60%; the latter also recorded the lowest IMA in diameter and height (16.4 cm and 1.8 mm, respectively). Finally, as a sampling prototype, 38 permanent plots were established to start monitoring at the community assembly scale; Finally, a rating model was proposed to evaluate the impact generated by the implementation of the different strategies in shrublands and secondary forests, based on some key ecological attributes based on acceptance ranges presented by the reference ecosystems determined for the area. study; it was found that the Multinurse strategy has played a fundamental role in accelerating the successional dynamics of restored ecosystems.