Certainly climate change is strongly affecting agroecosystems in Mediterranean areas and much is being written in the specialized literature on soil health. However, not all the environmental problems are due to climate change, having the intensive agricultural management a main role in the deterioration of the ecosystem services and overall behavior of agroecosystems.
In Central Chile frequent winter flooding of extensive areas are occurring and much has been published in the specialized literature but there are not enough local studies. The central valley in Chile was used to be cultivated with annual crops, some fruit species as vines and apples, industrial crops as sugar beet and extensive areas of pastures 40-50 yeas ago.
Nowadays, the intensive management, particularly after the boom of fruit trees recently and mainly represented by the cherry orchards as well as intensive vegetable crop cultivation are affecting soil while people are not aware of soil compaction which is causing less infiltration of rainwater with the consequently flooding of different areas during winters. The picture above is from this rainy day when news media wonder about the magnitude of the flooding just thinking in the rainwater accumulated.