Irrigation Management in Coastal Zones to Prevent Soil and Groundwater Salinization

What is it about?

An increase in water and soil salinity within a coastal habitat has direct effects on the natural vegetation and agriculture, including decrease in plant species richness, decrease in wetland dry biomass, changes in plant communities, decrease in seedling germination, decrease in surface area of the leaves, decrease in stem length, N2-fixation inhibition, increasing mortality, and indirect effects such as habitat loss for some animal species. In the Ravenna province, more than 68 square kilometers of farmland are at a risk for soil salinization. These are primarily the areas near the Pialasse lagoons and near the rivers open to sea. This agricultural land is at sea level and drained by pumping machines. Many of the pumping machines are located 5 km far from the shoreline and they maintain the water table at 2 meters below sea level during the year, creating hydraulic gradients land inwards and promoting salt-water intrusion from the Adriatic Sea. High rates of anthropogenic and natural subsidence and artificial drainage, among others causes, have caused groundwater salinization in the coastal unconfined and semi-confined aquifer near Ravenna, and a subsequent loss of fertile soils and vegetation species richness in the natural areas .

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