A comparison of the water use of tree belts and pasture in recharge and discharge zones in a saline catchment in the Central West of NSW, Australia

Abstract

Planting trees has been proposed as part of the solution to dryland salinity in Australia. The best location in the landscape and the spatial arrangement of trees however, is difficult to determine. This paper presents a case study of a field experiment that compared the water use of tree belts with that of pastures in recharge and discharge areas of a first order catchment in the Central West of NSW, Australia. The recharge tree belt and both pasture sites used very similar amounts of water but the discharge tree belt used double the water of the other three land uses by accessing groundwater. The discharge tree belt operated in an energy-limited environment, transpiring at a rate equivalent to atmospheric demand whereas the other three land uses were all water-limited. From a land management point of view, the establishment of more trees on the discharge site would have the biggest impact on reducing saline discharge and the least impact on the agricultural operations.