UTILIZACIÓN DE TÉCNICAS NUCLEARES PARA ESTIMAR LA EROSIÓN HÍDRICA EN PLANTACIONES DE TABACO EN CUBA Utilization the nuclear techniques use to estimate the water erosion in tobacco plantations in Cuba

Soil erosion is a relevant factor in land degradation, causing several negative impacts to different levels in the environment, agriculture, etc. The tobacco plantations in the western part of the country have been negatively affected by the water erosion due to natural and human factors. For the implementation of a strategy for sustainable land management a key element is to quantify the soil losses in order to establish policies for soil conservation. The nuclear techniques have advantages in comparison with the traditional methods to assess soil erosion and have been applied in different agricultural settings worldwide. The tobacco cultivation in Pinar del Rio is placed on soils with high erosion levels, therefore is important to apply techniques which support the soil erosion rate quantification. This work shows the use of 137 Cs technique to characterize the soil erosion status in two sectors in a farm with tobacco plantations located in the south-western plain of Pinar del Rio province. The sampling strategy included the evaluation of selected transects in the slope direction for the studied site. The soil samples were collected in order to incorporate the whole 137 Cs profile. Different conversion models were applied and the Mass Balance Model II provided the more representative results, estimating the soil erosion rate from -18,28 to 8,15 t ha -1 ano -1 .