Effects of Water Quality on Trend of Desodification of Heavy Soils by Continuous Leaching

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD Candidate, Department of Irrigation and drainage, Shahid Chamran University of Ahwaz

2 Professor, Department of Irrigation and drainage, Shahid Chamran University of Ahwaz, Iran

3 Associate Professor, Department of Irrigation and drainage, Shahid Chamran University of Ahwaz

4 Scientific Staff Member, Agricultural Engineering Research Institute (AERI), Karaj, Iran

Abstract

Huge amounts of drainage water are disposed from operating irrigation and drainage
networks in Khuzestan, SW Iran, that need to be managed and/or reused. One of the low
risk methods of reusing drainage water is to reuse it in land reclamation. To investigate
the effects of water quality on desodification of clay soils of this area, leaching
experiments were done in 1.5×1.5 meter plots in “Salman Farsi” sugarcane agro industry,
South Khuzestan. Leaching with three different water qualities; 2.61 dS/m (fresh water
from Karun River), 6.0 and 9.0 dS/m (a mixture of agro industry drainage water and
Karun River water) in three treatments; T1, T2 and T3 respectively, and six replications
ad based on a completely randomized blocks design were experimented. Rate of
desodification was decreased with increase in leaching water salinity. Using drainwater
with salinity of 6.0 dS/m led to increasing dissolved Ca++ and Mg++ in soil following
leaching. The SAR, in 0-30 cm soil layer that was initially 84 (meq/lit)1/2, following
application of treatments T1, T2 and T3 decreased to 9, 10 and 18 (meq/lit)1/2
respectively. So the sodicity problem was partly solved through leaching by drainage
water with salinity of 6.0 dS/m, excluding the need for use of fresh water. The soil pH
was not in the basic range either before or following leaching.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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