Understanding the influence of human-environment interactions on the ecological functioning of residential soils in the Río Piedras Watershed.

Abstract

Until this point the role of residential soils on the sustainability of the RPWS have been often ignored. This work elucidates the functioning of residential soils at the RPWS that have not been evaluated: 1) how their private managers perceive and manage them, 2) what drives the spatial patterns of soil cover in yards, and 3) what are the properties of residential soil and how factors related to management influence them. This work represents a step towards unraveling the complex dynamics behind residential soil functioning, and makes the case for the necessity of explicitly including residential soils in any nature-based solution proposed for the RPWS or any other urban region in a tropical climate. This study found that residents have lower perceptions of residential soils’ contribution to ecosystem services when compared to soils in all land uses. Additionally, there was no relationship between awareness of soil ecosystem services with household management practices, suggesting a disconnection between indicators of environmental awareness of soil ecosystem services and sustainable yard practices. Given the majority of RPWS residents declared interest in receiving more information about soils, it would be critical to determine how education strategies can help develop attitudes that advance soil conservation in RPWS. A major finding of the third chapter was the rapid front yard land conversion occurring at the yard scale from unpaved to paved or constructed surfaces that seems to be more pronounced in some sectors than others. Results suggest that initial decisions by developers in regards with lot size and initial house amenities may prompt the loss of green space in front yards. The patterns of front yard paving observed in this study represent threats to the ecological functioning of residential soils and to the social cohesion of communities that could translate into reduced capacity for the implementation of green infrastructure practices. The evaluation of residential soil properties highlights the potential role that properties selected by developers can have on soil functioning in the long term, and shows some of the favorable characteristics for designing urban soils in a tropical climate. Moreover, the observed soil characteristics of the most common yards at RPWS illustrate their potential for supporting important ecosystem services like carbon sequestration. Given these results, any nature-based solution to be proposed in the RPWS must explicitly consider residential soils and should pay special attention to the ongoing impermeabilization of private lands occurring, as it would drastically limit their provision of ecosystem services.