Abstract
Irrigation salinity is a common environmental threat for sustainable development in the Keriya Oasis, arid Northwest China. It is mainly caused by unreasonable land management and excessive irrigation. The aim of this study was to assess and map the salinity risk distribution by developing a composite risk index (CRI) for seventeen risk parameters from traditional and scientific fields, based on maximizing deviation method and analytic hierarchy process, the grey relational analysis and the Pressure-State-Response (PSR) sustainability framework. The results demonstrated that the northern part of the Shewol and Yeghebagh village has a very high salinity risk, which might be caused by flat and low terrain, high subsoil total soluble salt, high groundwater salinity and shallow groundwater depth. In contrast, the southern part of the Oasis has a low risk of salinity because of high elevation, proper drainage conditions and a suitable groundwater table. This achievement has shown that southern parts of the Oasis are suitable for irrigation agriculture; for the northern area, there is no economically feasible solution but other areas at higher risk can be restored by artificial measures. Therefore, this study provides policy makers with baseline data for restoring the soil salinity within the Oasis.
Highlights
The arid northwestern China, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is one of the most critical areas for agricultural and cotton production
Negative impacts of irrigation salinity on environmental quality and human welfare are including the decrease of food production, deterioration of stream water quality, loss of biodiversity, increase of flood risk, increase of infrastructure failure risk and desertification [9,10,11]
To meet the demand of an increasing world population, more lands will be converted into farmland, expanding the area at risk of irrigation salinity [12]
Summary
The arid northwestern China, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is one of the most critical areas for agricultural and cotton production. The irrigation salinity mainly results from unreasonable land reclamation and excessive irrigation due to the promotion of groundwater salinity moving along the soil capillary pores to the surface and a lack of enough drainage for the leaching of salts [3,4,5], supposing that groundwater salinity moves to the surface due to the replacement of native vegetation with shallow rooted crops, dry land salinity occurs [6,7], they both are belongs to secondary salinization. To meet the demand of an increasing world population, more lands will be converted into farmland, expanding the area at risk of irrigation salinity [12]
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