Paper Title
Soil Salinity Control Using Dry Drainage Concept
Abstract
The conventional drainage methods such as lateral drainage, vertical drainage and interceptor drains have been
used for many years to control soil salinity and water table. These methods increase agricultural productions but their
installations are expensive and cause environmental pollutions. Therefore, in recent years, less expensive and more
environmental acceptable drainage methods such as dry drainage have been introduced. In this method, the natural soil
system is used to reclamate soil and evaporation of non-irrigated soil (fallow soil) is used to control salinity and water table
of irrigated soil. There are few researches about the design and performance of this method of drainage under different soil
and water conditions. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of dry drainage under different
soil and irrigation water salinities. A physical based model was constructed and used to simulate dry drainage and collect
data. The model was studied for different combinations of soil salinity, irrigation water salinity and water table position.
During each experiment and for each of the above conditions, irrigation water, evaporation and soil salinity were measured
and compared. The results showed that dry drainage can reduce soil salinity significantly. As the salinity of fallow soil
increased, the daily evaporation and performance of dry drainage decreased. For dry and semi dry regions, which have
suitable conditions for dry drainage, to control and reduce soil salinity, the use of dry drainage is recommended.
Keywords- Dry Drainage, Salinity Control, Shallow Water Table, Evaporation, Fallow Land.