Current Trends and Emerging Challenges in Sustainable Management of Salt-Affected Soils: A Critical Appraisal

Food and nutritional security of the ever-growing world population in an era of climate change, widespread environmental degradation, water scarcity and the loss of productive lands has heightened the need for harnessing the potential of degraded lands and marginal quality water resources in agricultural production. Consistent with the fact that even marginal gains in the productivity of deteriorated, salt-affected lands could significantly improve the farmers’ livelihoods and environmental quality, a suit of agronomic and biological measures have been suggested to augment their agricultural efficiency. However, an analysis of the literature reveals drawbacks in the potential applications of many such conventional techniques rendering them somewhat ineffective in addressing these challenges. As fresh water is an indispensable input in the reclamation of saline and sodic lands, severe freshwater shortages have necessitated a refurbishing of the existing approaches to ensure the sustained use of marginal quality water in soil restoration. Climate change has emerged as a grave threat to the land and water resources, and agriculture in salt-affected environments is likely to be worst affected by the projected alterations in crop growth conditions. In this backdrop, this paper presents an analysis of the loopholes in currently pursued salinity management practices and delineates the future research priorities to augment and sustain the agricultural productivity in salt-affected soils.