Abstract Ever-increasing water-food-energy demand has led to the depletion of soil resources by mainly inadequate grazing practices. Nevertheless, the effects of different grazing practices on hydrological and soil erosion processes have not yet been well-understood. Therefore, we investigated the influence of different Nitrogen application doses and stocking rates in a pasture under rotational stocking (RS) on soil erosion and water infiltration in the Brazilian Cerrado region. The experimental area was a Panicum maximum pasture and was divided into three treatments with N applications of 100, 200, and 300 kg ha-1, which respectively allowed three stocking rates from 2014 to 2018: 3 (RS-3), 4.1 (RS-4), and 5 AU ha-1 (RS-5). We respectively adopted start and stop grazing heights of 80–90 and 40–50 cm (forage height) in all treatments. To evaluate infiltration and soil erosion, we performed 28 rainfall simulations with intensities ranging from 73.5 to 93.5 mm h-1 in plots of 0.7 m2 from November 2017 to February 2018. The simulations were carried out in random sites inside the central paddocks of each treatment comprising four repetitions in each treatment under vegetation and bare soil. We found stable water infiltration (SIR) and soil loss (SLw) ranging from 65.5 to 87.2 mm h-1 and from 0.03 to 0.15 mg s-1 m-2, respectively. SIR and SLw under RS-5 were respectively 33% greater and 78% lower than under RS-3 despite the 67% higher stocking rate in RS-5. We found that higher stocking rates at optimal grazing pressure did not deteriorate water infiltration and soil erosion. Our findings reveal an opportunity for a 5-fold productivity increase while reducing soil degradation since adaptive stocking rates are supported by grazing processes along with an increase in N fertiliser dose to increase vegetation cover.

中文翻译：

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施氮和放养率对巴西塞拉多农场土壤侵蚀和水入渗的影响

摘要 不断增加的水-食物-能源需求导致土壤资源枯竭，主要是由于放牧不充分。然而，不同放牧方式对水文和土壤侵蚀过程的影响尚未得到很好的理解。因此，我们研究了轮作放养 (RS) 下牧场不同施氮剂量和放养率对巴西塞拉多地区土壤侵蚀和水渗透的影响。试验区为Panicum最大牧草，分为3个处理，施氮量为100、200和300 kg ha-1，2014-2018年分别允许3种放养率：3（RS-3）、4.1（RS） -4) 和 5 AU ha-1 (RS-5)。我们在所有处理中分别采用80-90和40-50 cm（草料高度）的开始和停止放牧高度。为了评估入渗和土壤侵蚀，我们在 2017 年 11 月至 2018 年 2 月的 0.7 平方米地块中进行了 28 次降雨模拟，强度范围为 73.5 至 93.5 mm h-1。模拟是在每个处理的中央围场内的随机地点进行的在植被和裸土下，每个处理重复四次。我们发现稳定的水入渗 (SIR) 和土壤流失 (SLw) 范围分别为 65.5 至 87.2 mm h-1 和 0.03 至 0.15 mg s-1 m-2。尽管 RS-5 的放养率高出 67%，但 RS-5 下的 SIR 和 SLw 分别比 RS-3 下高 33% 和 78%。我们发现在最佳放牧压力下较高的放养率不会恶化水渗透和土壤侵蚀。