Salinity

Salt in soil is a big problem for Australian land. About 2.5 million hectares of land in Australia is affected by salt and this is increasing every day. Western Australia for example is losing the equivalent of one football field of land to salt every hour.

As well as damaging plants, salty soil damages buildings, bridges, pipelines and roads. Salty soil also means more salty drinking water. In South Australia, at least 20% of surface water is too salty to be healthy for drinking.

Why do we have salty soil? Where did the salt come from? What can we do to improve the situation? How will Australians cope as salt affects our lives more and more?

Use the internet to research these questions.

Some useful sites are:

Adelaide University Soil Science web site

Greening Australia web site

Saltwatch web site

CSIRO Media Release

Albert Annelid's Challenge: Can you write an article about salinity for Downsanup Downs Underground news? Your article needs to describe where the salt has come from, why we have salty soil and what we can do to improve the situation.

See what other students have written.