# A salty problem

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-salty-problem/830469>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [March 3, 2019, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-salty-problem/830469 "2019-03-03T04:59:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2019, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-salty-problem/830469/1 "2019-03-03T04:59:00Z")

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[In Cecil’s column about salt](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2698/did-ancient-conquerors-punish-their-enemies-by-sowing-captured-fields-with-salt/), he mentions the following:

> [@](#):
>
> A major environmental problem in Australia, Diamond informs us, is soil salinization due in part to sea salt carried inland by winds and inundation and then brought to the surface by land clearance and irrigation. Looming result: in 20 years a third of Australia’s wheat belt may be sterilized by salt.

So, that was in 2007. It’s 2019.

How’s Australia’s wheat belt doing so far?

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**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2019, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-salty-problem/830469/2 "2019-03-03T06:40:16Z")

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It’s a problem, and people are trying to do something about it.

[Relevant article](https://thewest.com.au/news/environment/wheatbelt-needs-275m-to-reclaim-land-affected-by-salinity-ng-b88590046z)

> [@](#):
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> Salinity has resulted from the clearing of deep-rooted vegetation to use land for agriculture, in turn causing ground water to rise and salt previously stored deep in the soil to move upwards.  
> About 9 per cent of the Wheatbelt’s nine million hectares is unproductive because of salt encroachment, yet three-quarters of this could be recovered in the long-term by introducing a controlled and regulated network of arterial deep drains.

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**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2019, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-salty-problem/830469/3 "2019-03-03T09:17:23Z")

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Better land management and improved irrigation practices have helped, but it still a big problem.

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**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-salty-problem/830469/4 "2019-03-05T23:36:29Z")

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> [@Patch](#):
>
> [In Cecil’s column about salt](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2698/did-ancient-conquerors-punish-their-enemies-by-sowing-captured-fields-with-salt/), he mentions the following:
> 
> So, that was in 2007. It’s 2019.
> 
> How’s Australia’s wheat belt doing so far?

According to Landline, the public TV country/farming report, further salination has been largely halted, (by the re=planting of trees, amongst other things). Those measures were in place in 2009: subsequent years have not seen continued worsening.

I don’t think that you can /reverse/ salination by planting trees: the few reports I’ve seen have suggested that some areas too salty for crops have been converted to wetlands. Cecil’s column also suggests that in the decades since it first became a big problem, some of the salt land may have reverted to useful crop land just by natural progression once the water table was lowered, but those areas were pretty dry to start with, so it would take a while for salt to rinse out due to rain.