Infiltration of melting saline ice water in soil columns: Consequences on soil moisture and salt content

A soil column experiment was conducted to study the water and salt redistribution in a coastal saline soil under infiltration of saline ice meltwater. Four salinity levels (0, 5000, 10,000, and 15,000 mg l−1 diluted seawater) and three volumes (1800, 2700, and 3600 ml) of source water were used. The results indicated that the soil water content increased with the volume of applied ice. In the top soil layers, water content was higher under salt-free ice treatment than under saline ice treatments. In the deeper soil layers, however, the saline ice treatments showed higher water content than the salt-free ice treatment. While infiltration of meltwater reduced the salt content of the surface layer of all the treatments, the desalting depths of the saline ice treatments were greater than the desalting depth of the salt-free ice treatment. The results demonstrated that in the monsoon regions, saline soils could be improved through infiltration with meltwater of saline ice.