Spatial Distribution Characteristics of Soil Salinity and Moisture and Its Influence on Agricultural Irrigation in the Ili River Valley, China

Li Xu, Hongru Du and Xiaolei Zhang
Additional contact information
Li Xu: Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Hongru Du: Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Xiaolei Zhang: Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 24, 1-17

Abstract: Soil salinization is a global problem, which threatens agricultural productivity and sustainability, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Soil salinity and moisture are important factors affecting agricultural production in arid regions. However, few studies have considered the influence of topographic factors on the spatial distribution patterns of soil salinity and moisture. This research aims to explore the spatial distribution characteristics and its influencing factors of soil salinity and moisture in the oasis farmland of arid areas. In this paper, GIS and geostatistics methods were applied to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics and variability of soil salinity and moisture, and then the corresponding proxy variables were used to quantitatively study the influence factors by using the geographical detector model. The results showed the coefficients of the variation of soil salinity and moisture to be 71.25% and 31.89%, respectively. There was moderate spatial autocorrelation of soil salinity and moisture. Soil salinity in the southwest was higher than in the northeast, and soil moisture in the northwest and southeast were lower than in the center and the northeast edge. The main influencing factors were available phosphorus, roughness of terrain, alkaline nitrogen, available potassium, and elevation. Combined action of topographic factors and soil nutrients has a major influence on the spatial distribution of soil salinity and moisture. Therefore, developing a suitable fertilizer regime under different topographic conditions could be an effective way to promote the sustainability of oasis agriculture in arid areas.

Keywords: soil salinity and moisture; influence factors; spatial variability; Oasis agriculture; Ili River Valley; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/7142/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/7142/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:24:p:7142-:d:297535

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().