The spatial distribution characteristics of soil salinity in coastal zone of the Yellow River Delta

Abstract

In coastal area, salinization is a common and serious problem for crop cultivation and ecological restoration of degraded wetlands. Therefore, the soil salinity has attracted increasing attention from farmers, government and environmental scientists. The factors controlling the soil salinity distribution have become a hot point in saline soil studies. In this study, statistics and geostatistics were used to explore the distribution of soil salinity in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) based on 150 soil samples that were collected in June 2010. Besides the experimental work, a geographical information system technique was adopted in this study. The results showed that the soil salinity ranged from 0.11 to 10.50 dS m−1 and the salinity in topsoil was higher than that in subsoil in the YRD, indicating that the salt in subsoil moved up and accumulated in topsoil as a function of evaporation. There was a significant difference among soil salinity spatial variances from different soil depths in the YRD. Generally, soil salinity of the topsoil was higher than that of the subsoil. Meanwhile, there were significant positive correlations in soil salinity between different soil depths. In addition, landforms, land uses, soil types and soil texture were important factors affecting soil salinity. The current distribution of soil salinity resulted from the comprehensive effects of anthropogenic activities and natural processes. The present study results suggest that the impacts of human activities were critical factors for salt redistribution in the coastal wetlands, which should be valuable for agricultural management and ecological restoration in the YRD.