Recent impacts of water management on dryland's salinization and degradation neutralization

Haiyang Shi; Geping Luo; Edwin H Sutanudjaja; Olaf Hellwich; Xi Chen; Jianli Ding; Shixin Wu; Xiufeng He; Chunbo Chen; Friday U Ochege; Yuangang Wang; Qing Ling; Alishir Kurban; Philippe De Maeyer; Tim Van de Voorde

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2023.11.012

Recent impacts of water management on dryland's salinization and degradation neutralization

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2023 Dec 30;68(24):3240-3251. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2023.11.012. Epub 2023 Nov 7.

Authors

Haiyang Shi¹, Geping Luo², Edwin H Sutanudjaja³, Olaf Hellwich⁴, Xi Chen⁵, Jianli Ding⁶, Shixin Wu⁷, Xiufeng He⁸, Chunbo Chen⁷, Friday U Ochege⁹, Yuangang Wang⁷, Qing Ling¹⁰, Alishir Kurban¹¹, Philippe De Maeyer¹², Tim Van de Voorde¹³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Department of Geography, Ghent University, Ghent 9000, Belgium; School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Research Centre for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Sino-Belgian Joint Laboratory of Geo-Information, Ghent 9000, Belgium. Electronic address: luogp@ms.xjb.ac.cn.
³ Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, Utrecht 3584, Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Computer Vision & Remote Sensing, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin 10587, Germany.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Research Centre for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Sino-Belgian Joint Laboratory of Geo-Information, Ghent 9000, Belgium. Electronic address: chenxi@ms.xjb.ac.cn.
⁶ College of Resources and Environment Sciences, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China.
⁸ School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China.
⁹ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt 500004, Nigeria.
¹⁰ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
¹¹ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Research Centre for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; Sino-Belgian Joint Laboratory of Geo-Information, Ghent 9000, Belgium.
¹² State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; Department of Geography, Ghent University, Ghent 9000, Belgium; Sino-Belgian Joint Laboratory of Geo-Information, Ghent 9000, Belgium.
¹³ Department of Geography, Ghent University, Ghent 9000, Belgium; Sino-Belgian Joint Laboratory of Geo-Information, Ghent 9000, Belgium.

PMID: 37980171
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2023.11.012

Abstract

Reducing soil salinization of croplands with optimized irrigation and water management is essential to achieve land degradation neutralization (LDN). The effectiveness and sustainability of various irrigation and water management measures to reduce basin-scale salinization remain uncertain. Here we used remote sensing to estimate the soil salinity of arid croplands from 1984 to 2021. We then use Bayesian network analysis to compare the spatial-temporal response of salinity to water management, including various irrigation and drainage methods, in ten large arid river basins: Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, Indus, Tarim, Amu, Ili, Syr, Junggar, Colorado, and San Joaquin. In basins at more advanced phases of development, managers implemented drip and groundwater irrigation and thus effectively controlled salinity by lowering groundwater levels. For the remaining basins using conventional flood irrigation, economic development and policies are crucial for establishing a virtuous circle of "improving irrigation systems, reducing salinity, and increasing agricultural incomes" which is necessary to achieve LDN.

Keywords: Bayesian networks; Drylands; Irrigation; Land degradation neutralization; Soil salinization; Water management.