ABSTRACT
Salinity in non-irrigated land in southern Australia has two principal causes: the presence of shallow saline groundwater, and the accumulation of salt (from rainfall) in dispersive soils. Over the last 50 years, there have been major attempts to understand salinity causes, impacts and methods for soil amelioration. This chapter illustrates these learnings with some research ‘snapshots’. We discuss how salinity can interact with waterlogging, the attempts that have been made to use shallow groundwater and reverse salinity by reintroducing trees back into landscapes at risk, the value of saltland pastures as a means of obtaining production from affected land, and the value of instruments based around electromagnetic induction to quantify salinity in the field. We conclude by noting that some of the halophytic fodder shrubs species used to revegetate saline land may have important benefits for the revegetation of millions of hectares of land that are expected to become too dry or risky for cropping as a consequence of climate change.
