Environmental, Agricultural, and Socioeconomic Impacts of Salinization to Family-Based Irrigated Agriculture in the Brazilian Semiarid Region

2020

Soil salinity is one of the major abiotic factors causing a serious threat to global food security, mainly in arid and semiarid regions. Salinity brings socioeconomic impacts associated with low crop productivity and devaluation of agricultural lands. In this chapter, we approach agricultural, environmental, and socioeconomic impacts of soil salinization. We also report two case studies from irrigated areas of the Brazilian semiarid, where previously cultivated lands were abandoned due to increased soil salinity. A survey of the published literature showed that soil salinity became a global problem that is accelerated by human activities such as deforestation and lack of irrigation manageme…