This doctoral project was funded by a pre-doctoral fellowship (Formación de Personal Investigador; FPI BES-2009-016976) of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness associated with the lnterministerial Commission for Science and Technology (CICYT) projects "Soil erosion and carbon dynamics in Mediterranean agroecosystems: radioisotopic modelling at different spatial and temporal scales" (MEDEROCAR; CGL2008-0831) and "Erosion and redistribution of soils and nutrients in Mediterranean agroecosystems: radioisotopic tracers of sources and sinks and modelling scenarios" (EROMED; CGL2011-25486) of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.

The results of this thesis revealed that the spatial patterns of soil properties and soil nutrients are closely related to landscape position and topographie characteristies. Higher contents of finer soíl particles «0.05 mm soil fractíon) including magnetic minerals and 137cs, soil organic matter and SOC and SON were reeorded in the upper part of the field. On the contrary the contents of carbonate, coarse and sand fractions were inversely corrrelated with topographic characteristics. Spatial patterns of soil properties, 137Cs and soil nutrients indicated that their distribution was related to similar physical processes.

66 Pags. Tesis elaborada en la EEAD-CSIC y presentada en la Univ. Zaragoza, Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra. Incluye las referencias de los ocho artículos científicos realizados durante el período de la tesis, accesibles a texto completo a través de sus enlaces doi (versiones de los editores) y handle (versiones finales de autor en acceso abierto depositadas en repositorio Digital.CSIC) .

This thesis contributes lo improve the knowledge of mechanisms that can explain why soil characteristics, land use and redistribution processcs are key factors that determine the current status of soil and can be used to identify suitable locations for implementing soil conservation strategies in Mediterranean mountain agroecosyslems.

Peer reviewed