Table of Contents
What is salinity and Sodicity?
While salinity can improve soil structure, it can also negatively affect plant growth and crop yields. Sodicity refers specifically to the amount of sodium present in irrigation water. Irrigating with water that has excess amounts of sodium can adversely impact soil structure, making plant growth difficult.
How can salinity affect the quality of drinking water?
High levels of salts may affect the taste of drinking water. Chloride in particular has a low taste threshold. Sodium and magnesium sulfate levels in drinking water may produce a laxative effect and reduce the suitability of a water supply for grazing animals.
What is the difference between saline and sodic?
Saline soils have excessive amounts of soluble salt, while sodic soils have high amounts of exchangeable sodium in the soil itself.
What are the causes of salinity?
Salinity occurs when the water table rises, bringing natural salts to the surface; in sufficient quantity, these salts become toxic to most plants. Salinity has been caused by extensive land clearing in Australia, predominantly for agricultural purposes.
What causes salinization?
Salinization occurs when dissolved salts in water tables rise to the soil surface and accumulate as water evaporates. Often rise in a water table is due to the replacement of deep-rooted vegetation, such as trees, with shallower rooted vegetation, such as grasses.
What is the salinity of drinking water?
less than 600 mg/L is regarded as good quality drinking water. 600 to 900 mg/L is regarded as fair quality. 900 to 1200 mg/L is regarded as poor quality. greater than 1200 mg/L is regarded as unacceptable.
What are the main causes of salinity?
Why Sodicity is a problem?
Sodicity can cause toxicity to plants and create mineral nutrition problems such as Ca2+ deficiencies. In saline soils soluble ions such as Cl−, SO42−, HCO3−, Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, and sometimes NO3− and K+ can harm plants by reducing the osmotic potential.
What are the causes of salinity development?
sea-level rise when sea salts seep into lower lands; breezes in the coastal areas that blow salty air masses to the nearby territories; seawater submergence followed by salt evaporation; inappropriate application of fertilizers when excess nitrification accelerates soil salinization.
What is the meaning of sodic?
Definition of sodic : of, relating to, or containing sodium.
How is salinity caused by humans?
Human activities can cause salinization through the use of salt-rich irrigation water, which can be exacerbated by overexploitation of coastal groundwater aquifers causing seawater intrusion, or due to other inappropriate irrigation practices, and/or poor drainage conditions.
What are the 2 types of salinity?
Primary and secondary salinity Primary salinity occurs naturally in soils and waters. Examples of naturally occurring saline areas include salt lakes, salt pans, salt marshes and salt flats. Secondary salinity is salting that results from human activities, usually land development and agriculture.
What are the different types of salinity?
The term “salinity” refers to the concentrations of salts in water or soils. Salinity can take three forms, classified by their causes: primary salinity (also called natural salinity); secondary salinity (also called dryland salinity), and tertiary salinity (also called irrigation salinity).
What is meant by salinisation?
Salinization refers to the increase in salt concentration in an environmental medium, notably soil. It is also known as salination.
How does salinity affect human health?
Impacts of excessive salt on health includes hypertension or high blood pressure in both male and female adults, leading to higher risks of stroke. Pregnant women have been found to be particularly at risk of gestational hypertension, (pre)eclampsia, and post-partum infant morbidity and mortality.
What is the main cause of salinity water?
Salt in the ocean comes from two sources: runoff from the land and openings in the seafloor. Rocks on land are the major source of salts dissolved in seawater. Rainwater that falls on land is slightly acidic, so it erodes rocks.
What are the two types of salinity?
There are 2 main types of salinity:
- primary—naturally occurring salinity.
- secondary—resulting from human activities.
How does Sodicity occur?
Sodicity is caused by the presence of sodium attached to clay in soil. A soil is considered. sodic when the sodium reaches a concentration where it starts to affect soil structure. The sodium weakens the bonds between soil particles when wetted resulting in the clay swelling and often becoming detached.