Management of soil salination in Sinkiang, China

In the Yanqi basin, Xinjiang, China, increased irrigation has led to water table rises and consequent soil salination. Overirrigation allows to make the single plot sustainable, however at the prize of wasting a large amount of water to push salt down to the groundwater. For the sustainability of irrigation the whole basin including lake Bostan and the “green corridor” has to be considered. On that larger scale the system is not sustainable as the salinity of the lake increases and the downstream obtains too little and too salty water. A coupled groundwater-surface water model is constructed to investigate alternative management scenarios based on elements such as water saving, replacement of river water by groundwater, and direct diversion of water to the downstream. Our main interest is in the substitution of river water by groundwater for irrigation as it will allow to lower the groundwater table and thus eliminate unproductive direct evaporation from groundwater. The model uses data from multispectral satellite images for calculation of evaporation and salinity distributions and radar satellite data for the constructing of the digital terrain model. The novel data are used for calibration by patterns. The model is turned into a game allowing administrators to get a feeling for the consequences of decisions.

More detailed information about the project can be found in the following poster:

• Sustainable Agriculture in the Yanqi Basin, Xinjiang

Main Publications

Brunner P., S. Khan, W. Kinzelbach, 2003. Comparing different arid basins with secondary salination: Towards a unified definition of sustainability. Proceedings of the International Conference on Water- Saving Agriculture and Sustainable Use of Water and Land Resources in Arid and Semiarid Areas, Yanglin, China.

Contacts

P. Brunner

Agency/Funding

Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering/70 kCHF

Partners

Institute of Environmental Geology, Beijing, Agricultural University of Xinjiang, Urumqi, CSIRO, Griffith, Australia

Status

Running