A Laboratory Test on the Effect of Drain Installation Depth on Drain Water Salinity (from a Clay-Loam Soil Profile)

Iran is ranked fourth for saline-sodic soils in Asia following China, India and Pakistan. Therefore, if coupled with waterlogging, drainage would be an inevitable and indispensable activity agriculture in most irrigated parts of Iran. Drain installation depth is one of the main economic as well as environmental challenges in design and construction of drainage systems. Deep pipe drain installation cause the effective control waterlogging, but damage the drain water quality. Deeper drain installation leaching more of salts from partly a deeper soil profile, throughout the current study. Extracting salts from beneath root zone. A laboratory test was carried out in which a 2×1×0.5 m3 sand tank filled with three 30 cm layers of clay-loam being employed to investigate the influence of drain installation depth on the drained water quality. Drain pipes were installed at 0.25, 0.5 and 0.85 m depths. Initial electrical conductivity of soil extracts (ECe) was estimated as 12.7, 31.2 and 67.5 dS/m, for the three layers, respectively. The results indicated that the maximum drain water EC (ECdw) increased by depth, being recorded as 43.1, 55.6 and 131.8 dS/m for 0.25, 0.5 and 0.85 m depths, respectively. Drain water depths for the tests were recorded as 22.5, 25.5 and 27 mm. The results showed that decrease in drain installation depth improved drain water quality, decreasing the drain water volume and while leading to an improvement in the environmental impacts of drainage.