Characteristic monitoring of groundwater-salt transportation and input-output in inland arid irrigation area

The rules of microscopic water-salt transportation can be revealed and the impact on the macroscopic water and soil resources can be further predicted by selecting a typical study area and carrying out continuous monitoring. In this paper, Jingtaichuan Electrical Lifting Irrigation District in Gansu Province (hereinafter called as JingDian irrigation district (JID)) located at the inland desert region of northwest China was selected as study area. Based on the groundwater-salt transportation data of representative groundwater monitoring wells in different hydrogeological units, the groundwater-salt evolution and transportation tendency in both closed and unclosed hydrogeological units were analyzed and the quantity relative ratio relationship of regional water-salt input-excretion was calculated. The results showed that the salt brought in by artificial irrigation accounts for the highest proportion of about 63.99% and the salt carried off by the discharge of irrigation water accounts for 66.42%, namely, the water-salt evolution and transportation were mainly controlled by artificial irrigation. As the general features of regional water-salt transportation, groundwater salinity and soil salt content variation were mainly decided by the transportation of soil soluble salt which showed an obvious symbiosis gathering regularity, but the differentiation with insoluble salt components was significant in the transportation process. Besides, groundwater salinity of the unclosed hydrogeological unit presented a periodically fluctuating trend, while the groundwater salinity and soil salt content in water and salt accumulation zone of the closed hydrogeological unit showed an increasing tendency, which formed the main occurrence area of soil secondary salinization.