A Practical Model for Desodification of Saline-Sodic Soils of Central Khuzestan Plains, Khuzestan Province

Abstract

The most important task in leaching practices is assessment of water quantity required for leaching of saline and saline-sodic soils. Therefore, reliable estimation of the required leaching water quantity is vital for reducing soil salinity to a desirable level. The present study aimed to investigate desodification of saline and sodic soils in central area of Khuzestan Province. Consequently, a large area of 3216 ha with S4A3 salinity/sodicity class in Khuzestan, Iran, was selected to obtain the required data. This experiment was conducted with two treatments and tree replicates. In the first treatment, the experiment was conducted by applying just 100 cm water depth in four 25 cm intervals. In the second treatment, 5000 kg/ha Sulfuric Acid was applied prior to salt leaching together with leaching water. The intermittent ponding method was conducted with double rings in a rectangular array. The required physical and chemical analyses were performed on the collected data. The leaching water was supplied from Shotait River. Four mathematical models were applied to the collected experimental data to derive a suitable empirical model. The results for large scale applications indicated that the proposed logarithmic model can estimate the capital leaching requirement much than the previously proposed models.