Experimental and modeling approach for soil physical degradation due to different irrigation techniques

Pakistan is a country in which most of the area falls in arid or semi-arid regions. in arid zone,salinity is a serious and chronic problem for agriculture. due to less rainfall we use different irrigation methods. in the recent era,water crisis is a major problem due to which people are moving towards modern water saving techniques e.g. high efficiency irrigation system (drip irrigation etc.). so,the present study was conducted in 2012-13 in order to analyze the effects of soil physical degradation by use of different irrigation techniques. three different sites were selected; 1- kota wala near sumundri,faisalabad where drip irrigation system was installed in 2012,2- inter loop site near the jaranwala,faisalabad having drip irrigation installed in 2010,3- mamo kangen,faisalabad where drip irrigation system was installed at 2009 having old plastic mulching. for analyzing soil physical variations,108 soil samples were collected at different soil depths (0-90 cm) from all sites. at each site,sample was collected under the drip and flood irrigation. then the soil characteristics were checked by three different techniques,a) irrigation of land by drip system,b) drip irrigation with plastic mulching and c) flood irrigation system. different soil physical and chemical parameters were measured including infiltration rate,bulk density,ph,electrical conductivity (ec) and sodium absorption ratio (sar). the results showed that the bulk density,ec,ph and sar increased and infiltration rate decreased continuously under the drip irrigation technique. it was concluded that with proper management,plastic mulching was found to be a good practice to control the soil physical and chemical degradation. © 2016,university of agriculture. all rights reserved.