Articles (A), Software (B) and FAQ's (C) on soil salinity in irrigated agricultural land
and their salination, salinization, desalination, desalinization, reclamation, rehabilitation and remediation
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A) Articles, papers and lecture notes

1. SaltMod manual
                    This manual gives a description of the Saltmod model (see Software page or below)including its principles, user menu, and case studies.
See table of contents
2. SahysMod manual
                    This manual gives a description of the SahysMod model (see Software page or below) including its principles, user menu, and case studies
SahysMod is a combination of Saltmod and a mathematical (numerical) groundwater model simulating water flow and salinity in unconfined and semiconfined (leaky) aquifers.
See table of contents

3. LeachMod application
                   
LeachMod is designed to compute the soil salinity in experimental fields allowing time steps of 1 day to 1 month and using the leaching efficiency as an important soil parameter. An article on this subject appeared in the International Journal of Environmental Science dealing with the reclamation of saline heavy clay soils. The paper van be viewed with this link.

figure soil salinity
Looking over the shoulder of a farmer to his
salinized land with poor crop stand.

B) Free software and models

SaltMod
 a mathematical, numerical simulation model describing the relations between agriculture, crop rotation, irrigation, rainfall, potential and actual evaporation (evapotranspiration), climate, hydrology, depth and level of water-table, capillary rise, deep percolation, soil salinity and subsurface drainage by drains or wells, and reuse (conjunctive use) of ground and drain water from wells. It includes farmers' responses to water logging and soil salinity.

 SaltCalc
 A simplified version of SaltMod with the advantage that calculations can be made for shorter time steps (e.g. weekl or monthly). SaltCalc can be used when field observations of irrigation, water table and soil salinity have been made and one wishes to develop a model for that situation. Normally, calibration of unknown values must be done using a range of values of the corresponding variable, running the model repeatedly for a number of time steps, and selecting from the range the value giving model results closest to observed values as the optimal value.
 
 LeachMod
 This model is somewhat similar to SaltCalc. On the one hand the water management options are fewer (e.g. re-use of drainage or well water for irrigation do not feature here), but the model is more modern in the sense that the variable input for each time step is given in a table so that the calculations over all the time steps are done in one go. Moreover, by inserting the observed values of soil salinity in the data table, the model optimizes the leaching efficiency of the soil.
 
 SahysMod
 a combination of Saltmod with a model of ground water flow and hydraulics to account for large spatial variation through a network of polygons. It includes phreatic (unconfined) aquifers as well as soil layers with slow vertical hydraulic conductivity (soil permeability for water) resulting in semiconfined (leaky) aquifers.

PolySalt This is simplified version of SahysMod with the advantage that calculations are made for shorter time steps (monthly instead of seasonally). The application principles are similar as those described before under "SaltCalc".


C) Frequently asked questions

figure polders Guinea Bissau
Polders for rice cultivation on acid sulfate soil amidst the mangroves of Guinea Bissau
    1 - What are saline and salty soils, how do they originate, where are they found, what is their problem, how can the problem be solved?
     This is the paper on soil salinity
     There is also a programmed self-help exercise on water and salt balances and leaching (reclamation) of a saline, salty and sodic, soil in Chacupe, Peru. Soil salinity, sodicity and alkalinity are analysed: Chacupe case study
A description of salinity development and control in a small coastal delta in Peru can be can be consulted here.
See also "Salinity control" in Wikipedia
 
2 - What are alkali, alkaline sodic and acid sulphate (sulfate) soils (cat clays), how do they originate, where are they found, what is their problem, how can the problem be solved?

     This is a paper on soil alkalinity, sodicity and acidity
See also "Acid sulfate soils" in Wikipedia, and: Alkali soils in Wikipedia.
 
3 - What is the development of river salinity in downstream direction when, in arid and semi- arid regions, the salty river water is used for irrigation of agricultural land and the drainage flow and effluent are returned to the river, and what are the effects on soil salinity and how can eventual problems of salty soils be tackled?
     This is a paper on river salinity.
The accompanying Excel spreadsheet can be downloaded.
Further a powerpoint presentation is available. You may download it or otherwise see it on-line.

 
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