Abstract
The aim of this study was to elucidate the current status of salt accumulation at three irrigated farmland sites. The site is situated within a sedentary village of nomadic people located in the northern part of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. We investigated the characteristics of the salt-affected soils and salt accumulation mechanisms by conducting field surveys and analyzing the irrigation water and groundwater, as well as the physicochemical properties of salt accumulated soils collected from varying altitudes. The surveyed area is situated in an arid clime, where the annual pan evaporation exceeds approximately 10 times the annual precipitation. Our surveys suggested that the salts contained in the groundwater at a depth <1 m migrate and elute near the surface from lower soil layers through evaporation. We identified that the salt-affected soils fell into categories of either saline or saline-sodic soils, compared to the saline-sodic soil, saline soil was situated at a higher altitude and had a lower clay content, and majority of the salts precipitating at the ground surface consisted of highly soluble sodium sulfate.
