Soil Quality Testing
What causes Dryland Salinity?
Dryland salinity is caused by rising water tables.
Some ways this can occur:
- Clearing deep-rooted perennial native vegetation and replacing it with shallow rooted annual plants. The shallow roots are no longer able to utilise the excess runoff, and it now seeps past the roots zone to enter the groundwater system
- Excessive groundwater recharge; this could come from increased rainfall or floods
- Natural groundwater discharge; due to the relatively flat landscape, the water table does not need to rise far to reach the vegetation or discharge on the surface.
Putting perennial plants back in to the agricultural landscape is one way to limit dryland salinity.
What are we doing about Dryland Salinity in the Wimmera?
Dryland salinity appears to have stabilised across the catchment. However, heavy rainfall and flooding, recharging of groundwater systems may lead to expanded areas affected by salt in the near future.
Even though the problems of dryland salinity appear to have stabilised for the moment, Wimmera CMA continue to monitor a number of bores to track any changes in groundwater levels over time.