Spatial characteristics and critical groundwater depth of soil salinization in arid artesian irrigation area of northwest China

Cui Chang, Guiyu Yang, Shuoyang Li, Hao Wang and Yaomingqi Song

Agricultural Water Management, 2025, vol. 307, issue C

Abstract: Soil salinization readily occurs in artesian irrigation areas within arid regions due to prolonged irrigation, leading to diminished soil productivity and consequential impacts on regional food security and ecological stability. The present study focuses on the northern area of Qingtongxia artesian irrigation district in Ningxia, the spatial characteristics of soil salinity were investigated using the three-dimensional inverse distance weight interpolation, and the types of soil salt accumulation were determined. Furthermore, the high probability partition of each type was determined by the Indicator Kriging method. Additionally, the path analysis method was employed to determine the critical groundwater depth, which is a significant factor influencing the occurrence and development of soil salinization. The results indicate the salt accumulation types in the soil profile are divided into surface accumulation (SA) type, middle accumulation (MA) type, and bottom accumulation (BA) type. The depth to groundwater is a crucial influential factor, with critical depths prior to spring irrigation identified for each type: 2.1 m for the SA type and 1.8 m for both MA and BA types. To mitigate salinization deterioration, it is essential that the depth to groundwater in the distribution area of each type exceeds the corresponding critical depth.

Keywords: Soil salinity; Spatial characteristics; Salt accumulation type; Critical groundwater depth; Artesian irrigation area (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377424005328
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:agiwat:v:307:y:2025:i:c:s0378377424005328

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2024.109196

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().