Salinity Damage to Irrigated Crops: Economic Measure from a Farm Survey in Pakistan

Dissolved salts (salnuty) in irrigation water are a sigmficant envhonmental problem in aud regions. Some of the most seriously impacted irrtgated areas are found m Pakistan's Indus Basm. Economic damage measures are essential for evaluating sahmty control programmes. Most damage estuuates are derived from controlled experiments, which may not be applicable to actual field conditions. Data from two JOtntly conducted farm suiveys---one dealing with farm inputs and production and the other with soll and waterchenustry-are analyzed with statistical regression techniques. Damage measures for three winter crops are developed. Whtie the dual suxvey method is expensive, the statistical analysis shows that less elaborate soil sampling procedures can proVIde sufficient information. The tech111que 1s Judged to be a reliable approach to measuring salinity damage functions under actual field condition