Manzoor Qadir

Paramjit S. Minhas

This book provides a practical guidance and a set of principles for improving management of saline and alkali waters and thus would be useful for different stakeholders, including agricultural students, researchers, environmentalists, and policy makers. The worldwide aggregated area with occurrence of saline and brackish groundwater is about 24 million square kilometers causing annual food losses to the extent of food requirements of 170 million people. For fostering the safe and reliable use of these waters, researchers have innovated management techniques helping sustainable irrigation with waters otherwise rated earlier as unfit. Vast pool of information has been put together in this book covering groundwater irrigation scenario and need for non-conventional waters; extent, genesis, and global distribution of saline groundwater; impacts of saline and alkali irrigation waters on soils and crops; management approaches for sustaining irrigation with typical saline and alkali ground waters for agricultural and horticulture crops; steady and non-steady state models for salt and water dynamics vis-a-vis crop responses; alternate uses of highly saline waters; water quality guidelines for irrigation under different soil and agro-climatic conditions and ultimately some researchable and policy issues for promoting irrigation with these waters.

Extent, Impacts and Management Guidelines

Irrigation Sustainability with Saline and Alkali Waters

Stefanos Xenarios

Iskandar Abdullaev

Dietrich Schmidt-Vogt

Barbara Janusz-Pawletta

This book offers the first multidisciplinary overview of water resources issues and management in the Aral Sea Basin, covering both the Amu Darya and Syr Darya River Basins. The two main rivers of Amu Darya and Syr Darya and their tributaries comprise the Aral Sea Basin area and are the lifeline for about 70 million inhabitants in Central Asia. Written by regional and international experts, this book critically examines the current state, trends and future of water resources management and development in this major part of the Central Asia region. It brings together insights on the history of water management in the region, surface and groundwater assessment, issues of transboundary water management and environmental degradation and restoration, and an overview of the importance of water for the key economic sectors and overall socio-economic development of Central Asian countries, as well as of hydro politics in the region. The book also focusses on the future of water sector development in the Basin, including a review of local and international actors, as well as an analysis of the current status and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals by Basin countries. The book will be essential reading for those interested in sea basin management, environmental policy in Central Asia and water resource management more widely. It will also act as a reference source for decision-makers in state agencies, as well as a background source of information for NGOs.

Water for Sustainable Development in Central Asia

The Aral Sea Basin

Asad Sarwar Qureshi

Nader Heydari

Hugh Turral

Arzhang Javadi

Approximately half of the irrigated area of Iran falls under different types of salt-affected soils and average yield losses may be as high as 50 percent. Slightly and moderately salt-affected soils are mostly found on the piedmonts at the foot of the Elburz (Alborz) Mountains in the northern part of the country. The soils having severe to extreme salinity are predominantly located in the Central Plateau, the Khuzestan and Southern Coastal Plains and the Caspian Coastal Plain. The process of salinization of the surface water resources is mainly due to natural conditions, and to a lesser extent, to the discharge of drainage water into the river systems. Estimates show that about 6.7 km3 of brackish water flow annually through 12 major rivers. There is no straightforward solution to the complex problems of salt-induced soil and water resources degradation in Iran. The approaches addressing the management of these resources need to be multidimensional and must take into account biophysical and environmental conditions of the target areas as well as livelihood aspects of the associated communities.

A review of management strategies for salt-prone land and water resources in Iran

Manzoor Qadir

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