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Economic Utilization of Salt-Affected Wasteland for Plant Production

A Case Study from Pakistan

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Handbook of Halophytes

Abstract

The present world population is over 7.7 billion and is growing by the minute. The need to fulfill demands for food, animal fodder, and industrial raw materials is one of the biggest challenges of this century, as is the increase in global pollution. As limited land and water resources are available, strategies are required to use these resources very carefully. More than 1 billion hectares of land worldwide are salt affected and barren. These lands are poor in fertility and unfit for conventional agricultural crop production. Irrigation without proper drainage arrangements causes waterlogging and secondary salinization. The scientific literature indicates that the groundwater of saline lands is brackish and injurious for plant production. To utilize salt-affected wasteland under a sustainable productive system by using brackish groundwater, the Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB) in Faisalabad, Pakistan, has developed “biosaline agriculture technology” for economic utilization of salt-affected wasteland and brackish groundwater for self-sustaining plant production. This chapter describes how salt-affected wasteland can be reclaimed by use of salt-tolerant plants (halophytes) of high economic value. This technology has been demonstrated at the NIAB’s Biosaline Research Station located near the village of Pakka Anna in a rural area 50 km away from Faisalabad. At the station, saline agroforestry, cultivation of forage grasses as fodder for grazing animals, fruit trees, medicinal plants and other nonconventional crops, fish aquaculture technology, honeybee culture, charcoal production from waste wood, extraction of essential oil from Eucalyptus, etc. are demonstrated. All of these technologies are discussed briefly in this chapter.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB), Faisalabad, Pakistan

    M. Yasin Ashraf & A. R. Awan

  2. Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB), The University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan

    M. Yasin Ashraf, Sumera Anwar, Binish Khaliq & Arif Malik

  3. Department of Botany, Edge University, Izmir, Turkey

    Munir Ozturk

Authors
  1. M. Yasin Ashraf
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  2. A. R. Awan
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  3. Sumera Anwar
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  4. Binish Khaliq
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  5. Arif Malik
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  6. Munir Ozturk
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Biology, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania

    Marius-Nicusor Grigore

Section Editor information

  1. Botany Department and Centre for Environmental Studies, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey

    Munir Ozturk

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Yasin Ashraf, M., Awan, A.R., Anwar, S., Khaliq, B., Malik, A., Ozturk, M. (2020). Economic Utilization of Salt-Affected Wasteland for Plant Production. In: Grigore, MN. (eds) Handbook of Halophytes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17854-3_87-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17854-3_87-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-17854-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-17854-3

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