Physical attributes of soil under different uses with irrigation in semiarid Pernambuco

Soils in semiarid climate regions had been degraded by salinization, reducing their productive capacity. This work aimed to evaluate physical attributes of soil in an irrigated perimeter in the semiarid Northeast of Brazil and to compare different soil uses using these attributes. The study was carried out at Ico-Mandantes Irrigated Perimeter, between Petrolandia and Floresta, in semiarid region of Pernambuco, in which the populations were separated by their uses in annual crops (C), fruticulture (F), discarded lands (D), pasture (P), native vegetation (V). Undisturbed and disturbed soil samples were collected, in layers of 0-10, 10-30 and 30-60 cm, for physical analysis. The indicators were submitted to multivariate analysis, by Principal Component Analysis, and clustering by the Tocher method. The agricultural use promoted alterations in the physical attributes of soil in relation to soil under native vegetation. The soil quality for the physical attributes varied between the layers of 0-10 and 10-30 cm, except in use V, sohich presented similar quality in these layers. F and P uses had presented better physical soil quality than C use in the layers of 0-10 and 10-30 cm and D use presented the worst soil quality in the evaluated layers.