Evaluation of soil resilience to anthropopressure in Łosie village (Lower Beskids Mts) – preliminary results

This paper presents the preliminary results of research on soil resilience to anthropopressure in Łosie village (Lower Beskids Mts). The considered risks included three features which reflect soil resilience: predicted soil loss caused by water erosion, mechanical and physico-chemical filtration capacities. The average annual rate of soil loss was calculated based on the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). Analyses of mechanical and physico-chemical filtration capacities of soils were conducted on the basis of algorithms which took into account the soil texture class and groundwater table class. The results confirmed that the highest predicted soil loss takes place within arable lands, particularly those located on slopes - with up and down tillage. During the period from 1997 to 2009, predicted soil loss decreased by 57% due to the decline in the percentage of arable land in the research area. It was found that the introduction of cross-slope tillage within arable lands could decrease overall predicted soil loss up to 67%. Areas with the lowest mechanical filtration capacities were located on slopes and related to sandy clay soils whereas the areas with the lowest physico-chemical filtration capacities were situated in valley bottoms and are mainly due to the shallow level of the groundwater table. Finally, it was noted that the different types of analyzed risk do not overlap nor even do they correspond with each other, which is conditioned by different features of the environment that were taken into consideration. The obtained results have shown how important sustainable spatial planning evaluation of various types of environmental resilience is.