Evaluation of nature-based climate solutions for agricultural landscapes in the Galápagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands are highly vulnerable to climate and environmental change, and nature-based solutions can help local communities adapt local agricultural systems. Through a comparative analysis, we evaluated the effects of three land management strategies on soil temperature, soil water availability and storage, and carbon stocks in Santa Cruz Island (Galápagos Archipelago). We installed six monitoring sites that consisted of two replicates per pathway: (i) the avoided loss of tropical forest, (ii) the conservation of scattered trees and living fences in at-risk agroforestry system, and (iii) the increase in biomass after a reduction of the grazing intensity. The monitoring sites were equipped with a dense network of rain gauges, air temperature and relative humidity sensors, and capacitance/frequency probes that registered volumetric water content and soil temperature. After pedological characterization of the soil profiles, the soil physico-chemical and hydrophysical properties were determined in laboratory. Over a period of 30 months (July 2019 to December 2021), hydrometeorological and soil environmental data were collected.

We assessed differences in soil temperature, moisture availability and soil organic carbon content between native forests, sites under traditional agroforestry and under passive restoration. Forest soils were 12 % cooler;, and soil moisture under forest was 20 % higher than in parcels with silvopastural management. Forest soils had a lower dry bulk density, lower saturated hydraulic conductivity and higher water retention capacity in comparison with the other two management types. In silvopastural systems, a decrease of grazing intensity had a positive effect on soil carbon stocks, that were about 50 % higher than in soils under traditional management. This study shows that avoided loss of tropical forest within an agricultural landscape is a promising strategy to mitigate increasing soil temperatures, agricultural drought, and decline in soil organic carbon content. Continued monitoring of the experimental sites is necessary to corroborate the findings of this investigation at longer temporal scales.