Soil and aquifer salinization: toward an integrated approach for salinity management of groundwater

Degradation of the quality of groundwater due to salinization processes is one of the key issues limiting the global dependence on groundwater in aquifers. As the salinization of shallow aquifers is closely related to root-zone salinization, the two must be considered together. This chapter initially describes the physical and chemical processes causing salinization of the root-zone and shallow aquifers, highlighting the dynamics of these processes and how they can be influenced by irrigation and drainage practices, thus illustrating the connectivity between soil and groundwater salinization. The processes leading to aquifer salinization in both inland and coastal areas are discussed. The roles of extractive resource industries, such as mining and coal bed methane operations, in causing aquifer salinization are also outlined. Hydrogeochemical changes occurring during salinization of aquifers are examined with the aid of Piper and Mixing Diagrams. The chapter then illustrates the extent of the problem of groundwater salinization as influenced by management and policy using two case studies. The first is representative of a developing country and explores management of salt-affected soils in the Indus Valley, Pakistan, while the second looks at a developed country, and illustrates how through monitoring we can deducecauses of shallow aquifer salinity in the Namoi Catchment of NSW, Australia. Finally, there is a section on integration and conclusions where we illustrate how management to mitigate salinization needs to be integrated with policy to diminish the threat to productivity that occurs with groundwater degradation

50 years and worlds apart: Rethinking the Holocene occupation of Cloggs Cave (East Gippsland, SE Australia) five decades after its initial archaeological excavation and in light of GunaiKurnai world views

In this paper we report on new research at the iconic archaeological site of Cloggs Cave (GunaiKurnai Country), in the southern foothills of SE Australia’s Great Dividing Range. Detailed chronometric dating, combined with high-resolution 3D mapping, geomorphological studies and archaeological excavations, now allow a dense sequence of Late Holocene ash layers and their contents to be correlated with GunaiKurnai ethnography and current knowledge. These results suggest a critical re-interpretation of what the Old People were, and were not, doing in Cloggs Cave during the Late Holocene. Instead of a lack of Late Holocene cave occupation, as previously thought through the conceptual lens of ‘habitat and economy’, Cloggs Cave is now understood to have been actively used for special, magical purposes. Configured by local GunaiKurnai cosmology, cave landscapes (including Cloggs Cave's) were populated not only by food species animals, but also by ‘supernatural’ Beings and forces whose presence helped inform occupational patterns. The profound differences between the old and new archaeological interpretations of Cloggs Cave, separated by five decades of developing archaeological thought and technical advances, draw attention to archaeological meaning-making and highlight the significance of data capture and the pre-conceptions that shape the production of archaeological stories and identities of place