Mapping the Extent and Severity of Soil Salinity in an Irrigated Basin in Utah.

The world’s food supply greatly relies on irrigated agriculture, but irrigated agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions is prone to saline soil and water conditions. Electromagnetic Induction (EMI) has become widely accepted in performing salinity surveys due to its ability to perform large-scale surveys with instantaneous readings. Our objective in this study was to provide a base-line inventory of the extent and severity of soil salinity in one of the major irrigated basins in the state of Utah. Such an inventory is critical to projecting the productivity of such irrigated basins under short- or long-term drought conditions.  The inventory was created by: 1) calibrating EMI measurements to measurements of soil electrical conductivity (EC), 2) Creating field-scale maps of soil EC from EMI measurements, and 3) determining how salinity distribution data would be represented at a regional level using the field-scale maps of EC.