ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Soil Processes
This article is part of the Research TopicClimate Change and Soil Salinization: Challenges for Environmental and Engineering ResilienceView all articles
Assessing field-scale salt leaching during saline soil remediation with electrical resistivity tomography and electromagnetic induction methods
Provisionally accepted
- 1Chinese Academy of Sciences Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Lanzhou, China
- 2CCCC Second Highway Consultants Co., Ltd., Wuhan, China
- 3Jingtai County Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center, Jingtai, China
- 4Northwest Minzu University, Lanzhou, China
- 5Center for Agricultural Resources Research, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shijiazhuang, China
- 6Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Nanjing, China
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During the remediation of saline wasteland, it is crucial to rapidly and accurately characterize the spatial distribution and temporal dynamics of soil salinity for evaluating the efficacy of leaching measures and guiding management strategies. In this study, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and electromagnetic induction (EMI) were deployed in a saline wasteland in the Jingtai Yellow River Irrigation District, Gansu Province, China, to monitor field-scale changes in salinity before and after salt leaching. A calibrated model linking soil bulk electrical conductivity and ground temperature to total dissolved solids (TDS) was applied to convert geophysical results into quantitative TDS values, enabling quantitative assessment of field-scale salt removal rates. Monitoring indicated that salinization was mainly caused by a rising groundwater table resulting from inadequate drainage, which led to evaporation-driven salt accumulation in low-lying areas and eventual land abandonment. Although remediation measures—including dredging drainage ditches and conducting salt-leaching irrigation—were implemented, their effectiveness was spatially heterogeneous due to the presence of low-permeability layers such as clay pans or caliche. For instance, along a transect 5 meters from a newly dredged ditch, the desalination rate reached 87.8% after one leaching event. In contrast, along a transect 85 meters from the ditch, the rate was only 16.8% after dredging and leaching. These findings underscore the need for targeted salt control strategies and optimized winter irrigation protocols to improve regional salinity management.
Keywords: Desalination rate, electrical resistivity tomography, inducedelectromagnetic, saline soil, Salt leaching
Received: 17 Nov 2025; Accepted: 09 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 You, Fu, Liu, Li, Wang, Pan, Wang, Yang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xicai Pan
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