<
https://theconversation.com/even-far-from-the-ocean-australias-drylands-are-riddled-with-salty-groundwater-what-can-land-managers-do-225277>
"In the 1890s, railway engineers noticed river water used by steam locomotives
started to become salty when surrounding land was cleared for agriculture.
Over the next decades, the problem worsened. In 1917, a Royal Commission in
Western Australia dismissed the threat from salt and instead promoted more
clearing of land.
Ignoring the problem didn’t solve it. Salt water began rising from below in
many new agricultural regions. Crops could not use this salty water. In March
1924 – a century ago this month – the railway engineer W.E. Wood published the
first scientific paper on the causes of salinity in Australia.
Wood concluded land clearing was causing groundwater levels to rise, bringing
salt stored underground to the surface. He correctly proposed the salt in this
region had come from the oceans, after evaporated seawater with residual salt
fell as rain.
In 2002, our last comprehensive national estimate put salinity-affected land at
around 1.75 to 2 million hectares – about 7.5 times the size of the Australian
Capital Territory."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
