Water balance improvement by afforestation for farmland with saline problem in a semi-arid area in Western Australia

In Western Australia, food production was gradually declined because of salinity problem. This salinity caused by ascending ground water table, which was caused by conversion from forest to farmland in wheat belt area over two centuries. To avoid salinity problem in this area, agro-forestry is one of the choice for improving this situation. When agro-forestry will be applied, trees will be planted in some part of farmland, and these trees will uptake ground water, which decline water table. At the same time, these trees will stock carbons inside their body from atmospheric CO2. So agro-forestry is good method for countermeasure to salinity problem and green house effect, but no one has criteria how large area will be converted to forest from farmland. Thus, in this study, based on water balance analysis, we aimed to establish water balance estimation model for designing agro-forestry for farmland of Western Australia