ABSTRACT
Growing plants in arid regions is a major challenge, relying upon careful management of the scarce water resources (Figure 21.1). As water moves across rocks and through soils, it dissolves salt which in turn becomes something that also needs careful management, particularly in desert regions such as southern Iraq. Salt is seldom managed as a solid unless there is an economic benet to it or unless it’s a last resort as, for example, in evaporation ponds where some farmers make salt because they have no other place to put it.
