Australia Facing Massive Salination Problems In Farming, Water - BBC

"Large parts of Australia face a problem from rising salt levels, putting farms, drinking water, and rivers at risk. The trouble dates from the introduction of European crops, whose shallow root systems did not reach the water table.

As a result, water levels slowly rose, bringing with them old salt deposits which are gradually poisoning the land.

EDIT

BBC Radio 4's environment programme Costing the Earth went to Australia to see the damage the salt is doing. It reports on the way railways, roads and gas pipelines are all succumbing to corrosion, and says it is estimated that by 2050 there will be no water fit to drink in one of Australia's largest cities, Adelaide.

Outside the cities, huge tracts of the most productive farmland are being choked by the salt. The 13.7 million hectares (33.85 million acres) of agricultural land that are likely to be threatened by the middle of the century will exceed the current total area devoted to wheat, Australia's principal crop. Already, waterholes used by Aboriginal people are contaminated, sheep are being killed by the salt, and some of the great wines of the Barossa Valley have been put at risk."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3564857.stm

Yet another story overshadowed by Laci, Jacko and Kobe, et. al.

warned of this through their stories. I was over in Australia 3 years ago and I was told some stories, and although I don't remember them in full, I do remember the gist, which was look after the trees, don't chop them down or the land becomes salty. Just proves how so called "uncivilized" people are so much more in tune with the Earth and how to live in harmony than us civilized folk.

This is an interesting case. Salt contamination of fields is a problem world wide, particularly in the American West, where it is associated with the interruption of river salt flows to the sea. (Some people think that a similar problem greatly expanded the Sahara desert in historical times: Tunisia and Libya were the granaries of the Roman Empire.)

But I was unaware that the species that evolved in the formerly ecologically isolated continent of Australia had evolved deep root systems to actually exploit the water table. I never imagined that such a mechanism for salination existed.

Thanks for the enlightenment.