| The major objective was to design a methodology of land evaluation suited to hillside agroecosystems managed by subsistence farmers within a small catchment located in central Honduras. I employed a multiple-scale, multiple-attribute approach which incorporated farmers' perceptions and concerns regarding land management and soil quality. The soils of the La Lima catchment are derived from Quaternary basaltic andesites and Tertiary rhyolites. They were classified as Inceptisols. At the fine scale, soil quality attributes were measured at twenty landform and land use combinations. Five functions important to soil as a favorable habitat for plant growth were evaluated, using additive and weighted combinations of the soil quality attributes. Land use was found to have a greater influence on soil quality than was landform. The most sustainable land uses were those with trees; irrigated agriculture was the least sustainable land use. At a broader scale, the impact of ten processes responsible for the transfer of water, nutrients and sediments on soil quality was investigated. Three of ten factors were found to influence the transfer of sediment and nutrients at the catchment scale. These factors were type and extent of vegetation cover, nature of erosion, and type of boundary surrounding a site. At the catchment scale, a coherent pattern relating land use to landform was not found to exist. The sustainability of land management in the catchment was in a state of flux. The local farmers' practices differed from their knowledge regarding soil quality, as they were limited in their ability to implement the complex and diverse management strategies necessitated by their environment. Their assessment of soil quality relied on attributes important to agricultural production and differed from the assessment of a soil scientist. |
