In order to determine where soil and water salinisation may arise, information which is

related to each biophysical or causal factor (i.e. agronomy, geology, etc.) needs to be

mapped. For example, geological and hydrological components can be represented,

respectively, by estimates of salt storage and deep drainage across a given irrigated area.

When these independent causal factors are stored in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the interaction between factors can be related to where salinisation occurs, and therefore determine if and where these conditions may be met elsewhere. This is essentially the basis of Salinity Hazard mapping, where a Salinity Hazard is defined as the extent to which natural

physical characteristics, excluding land cover, predispose a landscape to salinisation.

However, consistent and repeatable methods of generating biophysical or causal factors is time consuming and expensive. This often makes extrapolation and comparison from area to area difficult. The underlying aim of this project is to use similar methods to generate independent maps of these causal factors, store the information in GIS format and generate Salinity Hazard maps at the district level.