Effect of irrigation management on soil salinization in Manas River Valley, Xinjiang, China

Abstract The irrigated area of Manas River Valley in Northwest China is an example of the successful reclamation of massive land affected by shallow ground water levels and salinization. To determine the effect of irrigation management practices on soil salinization, soil profiles representing various soil types were sampled. The historical records on the characteristics of irrigation management practices, groundwater level and soil salts accumulation in this region at four key periods, namely: flood irrigation without drainage; flood irrigation with drainage but of low efficiency; irrigation in combination with lined irrigation canals and exploitation of groundwater; and irrigation with the application of water-saving irrigation techniques, were analyzed emphatically. In addition, the salinization status of cultivated land in 2010 and 2020 was also predicted by using analogism according to the relationship between soil salinization and irrigation practices. The results revealed that the application of the traditional irrigation methods, such as flood irrigation and ridge irrigation, resulted in a rapid rising of groundwater level and salts accumulation in soil surface layers. However, with the way of well irrigation and well drainage, the groundwater level and the desalinization in soil layers apparently lowered, leading to a substantial increase of crop yield. Currently, the application of drip irrigation under mulch decreased the salts concentration in soil layers and increased the crop yield. With the continuous application of drip irrigation, the average soil desalinization efficiency in soil layers may increase. It is predicted that the percentage of salinized land would be reduced to 35%–40% when irrigation water is utilized reasonably in 2010. With the high efficient utilization of irrigation water after 2020, the salinized land would remain below 30%. It is concluded that with the improvement of irrigation management, an obvious desalinization would appear in the soil surface layers and the area of salinized land in this study area would gradually narrow, but the land salinization problem would be hard to totally solve. __________ Translated from Journal of China Agricultural University, 2007, 12(1): 22–26 译自: 中国农业大学学报]