Spatio-temporal changes of soil salinity in arid areas of south xinjiang using electromagnetic induction

The aim of this paper was to research the spatio-temporal changes in total soluble salt content (TS) in a typical arid region of South Xinjiang, China, where the climate is arid and soil salinization happens easily. The total soluble salt content was interpreted by measurements made in the horizontal mode with EM38 and EM31. The electromagnetic induction (EM) surveys were made three times with the apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa) measurements taken at 3 873 locations in Nov. 2008, 4807 locations in Apr. 2009 and 6 324 locations in Nov. 2009, respectively. For interpreting the ECa measurements into total soluble salt content, calibtion sites were needed for EM survey of each time, e.g., 66 sites were selected in Nov. 2008 to measure ECa, and soils-core samples were taken by different depth layers of 0-10, 10-20 and 20-40 cm at the same time. On every time duplicate samples were taken at five sites to allevaite the local-scale variability, and soil temperatures in different layers through the profiles were also measured. Factors including TS, pH, water content, bulk density were analyzed by lab experiments. ECa calibration equations were obtained by linear regression analysis, which indicated that soil salinity was one primary concern to ECa with a determination coefficient of 0.792 in 0-10 cm layer, 0.711 in 10-20 cm layer and 0.544 in 20-40 cm layer, respectively. The maps of spatial distribution were predicted by Kriging interpolation, which showed that the high soil salinity was located near the drainage canal, which validated the trend effect caused by the irrigation canal and the drainage canal. And by comparing the soil salinity in different layers, the soluble salt accumulated to the top soil surface only in the area where the soil salinization was serious, and in the other areas, the soil salinity trended to increase from the top soil surface to 40 cm depth. Temporal changes showed that the soil salinity in November was higher than that in April, and the soil salinization trended to aggravate, especially in the top soil layer of 0- 10 cm.