Soil sodium and potassium adsorption ratio along a Mediterranean-arid transect

P. Sarah

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

Changes in the relationship between soil soluble ions and rainfall were studied on hillslopes at seven research sites that represent four climatic regions: Mediterranean, semi-arid, mildly arid and arid. At each site, soil samples were taken in several seasons and the ratio between the Na+ plus K+ content and the Ca2+ plus Mg2+ content (sodium and potassium adsorption ratio=SPAR) was determined. In general, SPAR increased with increasing aridity except for the most arid site in which the soil contains a gypsic layer. The relationship between SPAR and rainfall was non-linear. An abiotic threshold, characterized by a sharp change in the SPAR, was found around the 200mm isohyet: sites that receive less than 200mm annual rainfall showed significantly higher SPAR than those that receive more than 200mm, where SPAR was very low.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)731-741
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Arid Environments
Volume59
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2004

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Financial support was provided by the Israeli Ministry of Science and the Arts, GSF-Forschungszentrum fur Umwelt und Gesundheit GMBH, Neuherberg, Germany (DISUM-029) and the Commission of the European Union (research project MEDALUS III, contract ENV4-CT95-0115). I thank Dr. Jeff Herrick and the other anonymous reviewer for their enlightening and helpful comments.

Keywords

  • Climatic transect
  • Gypsic layer
  • Land degradation
  • Potassium adsorption ratio
  • Sodium adsorption ratio
  • Soil soluble ions

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