Irrigation water quality alters furrow erosion and infiltration

Furrow-irrigated crops can be damaged it the irrigation water contains large amounts of dissolved salts and/or sodium. But do the same water quality characteristics influence water infiltration. runoff and erosion? Studies conducted by the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Kimberly. ID. shine new light on exactly this question. Water quality is often described in terms of the water's dissolved salt concentration and the proportion of sodium salts present in comparison to calcium and magnesium salts. Salt concentration is expressed in units of electrical conductivity (EC) or total dissolved solids (TDS). The dissolved sodium content is described in terms of its sodium adsorption ratio (SAR). The EC or TDS of a water sample increases with salt concentration. and its SAR increases as the proportion of sodium in those salts increases. Note in this article that references to high/low EC or SAR are relative terms and do not denote water classification