Talk:Soil salinity control

11 June 2007
As of 11 June 2007, this page is currently too biased. There is never any mention of ideals.

There is no mention of the different types of salt and the effects of their proportions.

Animals and plants contain salt and that is not a problem. There must be a reason for that.

Here is a suggestion: certainly find out what the ideal proportion of potassium to sodium is and is not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mcampbell422 (talk • contribs).

That's a great idea! Unfortunately, adding lots of zohar "ideals" to a page that appears to be talking about evidence-based issues is merely muddying (sorry:) the issues here. I look forward to reading whatever people can find in the way of cited research about these issues. DMacks 05:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

12 June 2007
From R.J.Oosterbaan 10:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC). I am the creator of this article (it was made yesterday) and have removed the changes made by Mcampbell422, because they were out of context. He focussed on the salt balance in human, animal, and plant bodies related to their health, while the present article discusses the reclamation of millions of ha of degraded salty soils (in irrigation projects in the world) that lay barren and have deprived farmers of their income. I suggest Mcampbel writes an article about his subject under another title. The suggestion of DMacks is useful and in future I will update the article and add more references.

What I write is certainly not out of context at all. The article's title is "Salinity control" - literally, the control of salinity. That includes all that is salinity, including the composition of different salts that make up the overall content of salt.

You certainly cannot claim exclusive authorship of the article; it is not copyrighted.

Certainly let us explain the effects of the different proportions of different salts.

I might be willing to compromise after given enough discussion.

Mcampbell422


 * It appears you're talking about a somewhat unrelated concept that has the same name. Wikipedia is fine with that, but if we really have two different concepts, then let's have two different pages instead of trying to mix unrelated ideas or determine which is the "right" meaning of this fairly generic-sounding term. How about starting a Salinity control (physiology) article for it. DMacks 18:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

From: R.J.Oosterbaan 20:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC) 1. The message that I cannot claim exclusive authorship is both correct and redundant. 2. I am just trying to maintain a logical framework. Entering notions like "imbalancedly salts" without explanation (there must be quite a concept behind it) may make the reader confused, asking "what are they talking about?" 3. Please do not put two subjects that have a different purpose in one cage, they may bite each other. 4. The proposition by DMacks appears to be solution-oriented, and I appreciate it. 5. Mcampbell has restored the text that I deleted. Here is a sample:

The ideal proportion of potassium to sodium in the field, body, and/or diet is exactly 13/7 to one. Knowledge of the proportions of the composition the eutectic mixture of potassium and sodium surely reveals the ideal proportions of potassium and sodium of the human body. The range of composition for a eutectic alloy of potassium and sodium is exactly 40-90% potassium and 10-60% sodium. The absolute value of the average 65 percent potassium divided by the absolute value of the average 35 percent sodium yields the formula 1.857142 to one, with the 857142 repeating. Thus, the decimal 1.857143 to one is the best approximation of that eutectic alloy. The alloy mixture and the endogenous mixture are the same, for the reason for the conductivity of both substances is definitely the same: free ions of potassium and sodium mutually complementing one another. Since the eutectic alloy and the cytosol and blood plasma are strikingly similar, they thus have enough in common to be called the same thing, with the exception that the latter occurs in water. Thus, 1.857143 is likely the ideal decimal of the ideal proportion of potassium to sodium in the body and/or diet. Since the eutectic mixture or cytosol and blood plasma should be completely merciful, the number of sevenths, which is the number of parts of completion, should be exactly 13, which is according to the Zohar, the number of mercy. 1.857143 times 7 is 13.000001, which reveals that the decimal 1.857143 is almost accurate enough. However, the ratio 13/7 is accurate enough because that number times seven is exactly 13. As of 10 June 2007, the current proportion of potassium to sodium in the human body is supposedly only about 75% of what it definitely should be. The ideal proportion of calcium to magnesium in the field, body, and/or diet is exactly 41/9 to one. The eutectic alloy of calcium and magnesium is approximately 82% calcium and 18%. Please note that although those are approximate figures, they are exact. The absolute value of 82 percent calcium divided by the absolute value of 18 percent magnesium yields the formula 4.5 to one, with the 5 repeating. Thus, the decimal 4.5 to one is the best approximation of that eutectic alloy. 4.5 times 9 is 40.5, which reveals that the decimal 4.5 is almost accurate enough. However, the ratio 41/9 is accurate enough because that number times nine is exactly 41. Michael Campbell, Mahalalel, is duly accredited with the suggested above two combined paragraphs.

6. The bold font was added by me. Mcampbell speaks about eutectic alloy, cytosol and blood plasma, and numbers like 1.857143. All this is beyond my comprehension, and that will be so for many readers. It seems to me that Mcampbell is supernatural and he gives exact prescriptions without worldly justification. Have they come from a heavenly inspired source? END

To the above author: I am neither of this world nor of the other world(s).

Bias? Having two definitions certainly appears unbiased, but the reader is not left with any way to decide between either, both, or none of the definitions. One must weigh both the pros and cons of each. I plan to see whether I can write an unbiased account of them. Mcampbell422

Of which world are you, Mcampbell, if not of this world nor of the other worlds? I am just a commoner and not big enough to put my name in Wikipedia articles to prove the truth of what I am saying.

To find a solution for the differences of opinion evident in the previous discussion I have divided the page into two parts in an attempt to streamline it.

General question: who has put the tags:

in the article and what is the reason? I am new in Wikipedia (just a few days) and do not know if anyone can throw tags around and keep hidden. R.J.Oosterbaan 22:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course someone can keep hidden and do what Wikipedia is design to allow - that's the purpose of anonymous logging. How you split the article into two parts is inadvisable. All of this article relates to physiology and the land alike. Humans definitely live off of the land and humans also develop the land. The salinity imbalance problem is definitely universal, not just confined to the land. I strongly suggest putting the universal basics, what I call the "principles" and what you call "physiology" back under the heading of "Principles of salinity control" and renaming what is currently "Principles of salinity control" into "Examples of salinity control". Thanks a lot. Mcampbell422


 * I know that I just added those tags:) Mcampbell422, until you provide a verifiable reliable source that supports your assertions of some ideal ratio of salts, it's WP:OR and not appropriate to have in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not for writing your original ideas. DMacks 00:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

If anyone wishes to see what keeps being wrongly deleted, see http://salinitycontrol.blogspot.com/. Mcampbell422

Request for comments
Rather than continue this revert war, constant change of page focus, and addition of uncited material, I have filed an RFC to bring in some outside opinions. DMacks 04:27, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I have withdrawn the RFC for now. I see consensus that the material does not belong, and an admin has warned User talk:Mcampbell422 against re-adding it without cites. DMacks 07:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Originality and/or Bias
Quote: "The prime cause of salinization is the fact that irrigation water brought in from the rivers contains salts."

The above statement says that the primary cause of the problem is the presence of salts. That statement apprently applies to all salts in all proportions. However, this statement is apparently a claim of original research since, to my knowledge, not any of the effects of the different proportions of the different salts have been studied before now. If one says "[...] the presence of sodium chloride" then that is also apparently a statement of original research. That statement, when taken only by itself, implies that only the presence of sodium chloride is what causes the problem. Please admit what most of the literature is slient about - proportions. If those effects have been studied before, then I strongly suggest giving mention to them. Also, to my knowledge, nowhere does any literature exactly define the phrase "Salinity Control". Making this phrase refer to something where before now it has not, is a new interpretation and is thus correctly called original research. If one says that "Salinity control" is defined as something like "the physical control, management, and use of water and related land resources in such a way as to maintain or reduce salt loading and concentrations of salt in water supplies" as per "Nevada's Water Dictionary" then one must necessarily say that the term "salt" used in that definition is necessarily ambiguous because Merrium Webster defines the word "salt" as "any of various compounds that result from replacement of part or all of the acid hydrogen of an acid by a metal or a group acting like a metal : an ionic crystalline compound".

However, realizing that the phrase "salinity control", if it is not exactly defined before now, and is a general phrase, applying to all types of "Salinity Control", then the use of it in a general fashion is correctly done and is not correctly considered original research.

Additionally, although after the title the article specifies what is apparently meant by the title "Salinity control" the title itself may be so general as to apply to all types of Salinity Control. Unless one carefully includes reference to the unified field aspect of the subfield (or, in other words, show the universality of the subfield), to give just a single subfield the name of a unified field is ncessarily bias. I strongly suggest renaming the article to something like "Soil Salinity Control" or including within the article reference to the universality of Salinity Control. For example, a reference given can be the prevention of hypokalmia and/or hypertension by the giving of one or more salts of potassium.

Thanks. Mcampbell422 00:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed ref.1 (Abrol et al.) from the title and put it under "problem of salinity". The same holds for Soil salinity. In both studies you can find what you are looking for. There is an enormous amount of literature available on the subject, including publications that give the salt composition of irrigation water, pH, SAR (Sodium adsorption ratio, an indicator of alkalinity hazard) etc. Please read them. You may also have a look at an analysis on reclamation of very saline soils in Peru Chacupe that you can find on my website. It is full of proportions. One of the leading publications in the sixties of the previous century, Handbook 60 of the US Salinity Laboratory at Riverside (see External links in the disputed article), has triggered much research elsewhere in the world and their norms and standards have been applied in many irrigation projects throughout the world. In their work you will find many proportions. You have, in my view, an unfair style of discussion putting wrong statements (like proportions have not been studied) and leave it to others to prove that it it is wrong indeed. On this basis you are including warning tags and I cannot believe that this is within the purpose of the tags. From your comments I gather that you are not familiar with salinity studies in irrigation projects and I recommend that you go through some literature before putting warning tags in the article all the time. Your actions, I am sorry to say, are felt by me as "stalkative" instead of "talkative". I have removed the tags, but I am afraid you will put them back. R.J.Oosterbaan 09:37, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Proportions within salt itself
I'm very sorry about (very unintentionally) giving you a such hard time. I do not plan to add the tags ever again. I read the FAO document and the document at http://www.waterlog.info/pdf/chacupe.pdf and they do not ever appear to mention any proportions between the potassium salts and the sodium salts of the ground or irrigation water. The FAO article throughout, with only and maybe a couple of exceptions, implies that salt in relation to agriculture is always one or more salts of sodium. That certainly isn't true; what is fertilizer? Potassium chloride. Phosphate. Nitrate. No sodium there. Necessarily these salts also can accumulate in ground water also. Even so, it would be necessary to mention that not salt itself, but rather the balance within salt is necessary to control; potassium, for example, has a way of counteracting the damaging effects of what is otherwise too much sodium. Nowhere does that appear to ever be addressed in the documents. Sincerely - Mcampbell422 11:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * This sounds like at heart it's a terminology question, where the term "salt" generally means "NaCl" unless one is explicitly talking in the scientific "ionic compound" sense. The salt page fought over that exact issue a month or two ago. Likewise, "salinity" implies the NaCl sense of salt. Actually, I've never heard "salinity" refer to any other kind of salt even in scientific circles...would seem to be a linguistic-based argument ("salt can be other than NaCl, so salinity must mean that too") not in its actual technical meaning. DMacks 15:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes; of course it's a terminology question. You say that "salt" has a general meaning. True - however, every generalization *necessarily* comes with an exception. Those exceptions should always be sufficiently emphasized. A good word to use for something that is always true or at least never false is "universal". Encylopedic terms should not just be kept as general as possible, but as universal as possible. When that doesn't happen, people can get confused about meanings. Sincerely - Mcampbell422 16:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The discussion with Mcampbell has taken a turn to the interesting side. It is true that in soil salinity potassium and nitrate are seldom mentioned, except that upon leaching the soil for reclamation, these nutritional elements are lost and that and even that excess nutrients in the drainage water can give algae growth and choking. It would be worth to say something about this in the salinity control article. However, it appears that potassium and nitrate have never played a role in salinity discussions in the sense that these elements were in excess (apart from an overdoses of fertilizers). I assume (but I can not be sure) that the researchers would have found a role of these elements if it would have been there, so I am to accept that it is not there. Mcampbell, what about going through the fertility pages, there you may come across a lot of potassium, nitrate and phosphate. R.J.Oosterbaan

Saltmod section
The section on Saltmod reads like the manual for a computer program. Aside from possible copyright issues, I don't think it's appropriate for an encyclopedia article. -- Hongooi 07:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no copyright issue as the text is mine. The correspondence between the section and the manual is there. Can somebody help me to do something about it. R.J.Oosterbaan 15:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Article tone
Came across the article today because I was looking to find whether gypsum has a role in controlling soil salinity. Interesting article, however I suggest it needs some work to bring it into line with wikipedia standards and I've done some editing. I'm going to tag the article as requiring work to improve its tone to attract the attention of other editors who can help.

I can see user R.J.Oosterbaan is an expert on this topic and wikipedia welcomes scientists who are prepared to provide their knowledge. That said I would urge some caution when editors working on wikipedia cite their own research. Wikipedia has quite a few conflict of interest policies on this issue. I can provide more information about these if it is required. Cheers Saganaki- 02:14, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I understand Saganaki's feelings about citing own research. Saltmod is used a lot (try Google). One of these days I will add references to articles published in international journals. In some of the articles I am a co-author. Can't help it. R.J.Oosterbaan 15:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The references were added. By the way, there are gypsiferous soils (not much about them in Wiki, I might do something about that). They form a separate category and have their specific problems. Gypsum, so far, has played no role in the study and reclamation of saline soils, but it is used as an amendment in alkali soils. R.J.Oosterbaan 19:25, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it would be worth making Saltmod into an article of its own, as was done with the other model. I think the salinity article itself will grow to be pretty big. Also, having saltmod separate would prevent anyone jumping to the incorrect conclusion that the salinity control article is a vehicle for promoting saltmod. (Currently the salinity article has c1,500 words on salinity control and 2,800 on saltmod). I think it would be fairly simple to do so please go ahead and make saltmod into a separate article if you think this sounds like a good idea. On another tack, mind if I ask whether there are any estimates of how economically valuable ahydrogenous gypmsum is as a soil remediation agent? This kind of gypsum seems to be produced by some coal fired power plants. Cheers Saganaki- 00:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The manual-like part has been removed. A separate article will be made. When Hongooi and Saganaki are satisfied, the "tone tag" could perhaps be removed. R.J.Oosterbaan 08:33, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * After a spell of radio silence and a further cutback in Saltmod references I assumed that removal of the "tone" tag would not be objected. Instead an "expand" tag was included. R.J.Oosterbaan 22:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * By the way, Saganaki, I remember that (ahydrogenous) gypsum has been used as a soil amendment in European forests to mitigate the effects of acid rain. I do not know the details of economic value. R.J.Oosterbaan 09:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Osmoregulation link
I think very few wikipedia users who enter the term "salinity control" are actually looking for osmoregulation, so I've removed the redirection link "For salt balance in animals, see osmoregulation.". A [web search] brings up only 345 hits, many of which are mishits with "control" referring to a control group, or to this article. Pro crast in a tor (talk) 19:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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Climate Change
I am not an expert on soil salinity and therefore have not edited anything on the page. However, I noticed that under "The soil salinity problem" section, the impact of climate change (both in the form of rising sea levels and of greater evaporation in drier climates) on increasing the rate of soil salinization is not mentioned. Can someone please fix this omission? Here are some resources that could be used: Thank you! 2600:4040:2AA5:BC00:2CC1:A75E:29E9:BD76 (talk) 04:27, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
 * https://news.osu.edu/climate-change-is-making-soils-saltier-forcing-many-farmers-to-find-new-livelihoods/
 * https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1136548854/climate-environment-migration-sengal-spain-africa-europe
 * https://ensia.com/features/salinization-salt-threatens-soil-crops-ecosystems/