IMPACT OF DIFFERENT REVEGETATION TECHNIQUES ON SOIL AND PLANT ATTRIBUTES IN A RIPARIAN ZONE1

ABSTRACT In 2014, the Upper Paraguay River Basin (UPB) plateau in Brazil maintained only 39.5% of its native vegetation cover, most of which was located in riparian zones that were generally degraded, in legal reserve areas, or in regions without agricultural potential. Due to the lack of practical results in the region, so that farmers could base their projects for the recovery of degraded areas, this work was designed to determine the long-term result of three revegetation techniques and their contributions to soil attributes and vegetative parameters, in the riparian zone of a watershed in the municipality of Campo Verde, located in the UPB. It was found that in only seven years, the technique of distributing a mixture of seeds rich in nitrogen-fixing plant species with washed sand and composted cotton tow, followed by incorporation with light harrowing, favored a rapid establishment of native plants. In this case, the number of species and the floristic diversity was the closest to those of the Tropical Cerrado, i.e., the control. In this technique, Brachiaria brizantha was not dominant , and the mean of total organic carbon storage in the soil (TOCS) was significantly lower, thereby indicating that riparian zones with higher TOCS do not necessarily have greater plant diversity. Therefore, the competition caused by B. brizantha can affect ecological diversity in areas undergoing ecological succession.