Soil Salinity
Dryland salinity fact sheet
Soil Salinity
Dryland salinity (secondary salinity) is the result of an altered water balance caused by the clearing of land for agriculture and the removal of deep rooted native perennial vegetation with shallower rooted annual crops and pastures.
Approximately 2.7% or 82,000ha of the south coast region in Western Australia is affected by salinity (van Gool et al., 2008). Salinity leads to a loss of pasture production by nutrient imbalances or deficiencies, an invasion of salt-tolerant weeds, soil structure decline and a range of environmental problems such as saline waterways that affect aquatic life (Cunningham and Sargeant 2013). Perennial forages such as saltbush have been introduced in such marginal lands to improve production. Perennial systems including perennial shrubs have environmental benefits such as increased ground cover, better ground water management, reducing runoff and the potential for carbon sequestration.
It also gives farmers the ability to be opportunistic and make farming systems more robust against future climate variability.
Case Studies
Case Studies from the Stories from the Land series by South Coast NRM
YouTube Videos
For more information
Soil salinity in WA
(Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development)
Salt in the Australian landscape
(Agriculture Victoria)
Soil Salinity in Australia”
(CSIRO)
References
Cunningham, S., and Sargeant, K. (2013) Manage recharge and salinity – South Coast Sandplain WA. EverGraze website, Future Farm Industries CRC.
van Gool, D., Veron, L., and Runge, W. (2008) Land resources in the South-West Agricultural Region:A shire-based summary of land degradation and land capacity. Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia Resources management technical report 330.