Probable Impacts of Various Range Improvement Practices on Diffuse Salt Production

Abstract

During 1976 a study of soil profile salt concentrations and probable salt loading by surface runoff was made on 73 range improvement sites in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. The range improvement practices studied included gully plugs, contour furrowing, pitting, pinyon-juniper chaining, and various sagebrush-control treatments. Results of these studies indicated that the impact of gully plugs and contour furrows on potential diffuse salt production is somewhat variable and may in fact indicate that these treatments have only a minor potential impact, probably because the overland flow route is not a major source of diffuse salt movement, at least on lands sampled in this study. On pinyon-juniper sites and the various sagebrush treatments, the lack of difference in salt concentrations between treated and untreated sites was the only consistent trend. In general the measured salt concentrations in surface soils of either pinyon-juniper or sagebrush sites present a problem of little concern as related to salt production within the major river basins.