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Computers and aircraft are being marshalled by Murdoch University scientists to help combat a $2 billion a year salinity 'invasion' that is decimating Western Australia's agricultural and water resources.
 New, computer-generated landscape maps, developed from aerial geophysical data, are seen as a key to improving the planning and success rate of revegetation programmes using salt-tolerant native trees and plants.
The strategy, employing new computer modelling techniques developed by Murdoch University environmental scientists Dr Richard Bell and Mr Christopher Clarke, together with scientists from private industry and government agencies, will make it easier to identify, and map from the air, geological features, such as major faults, that are a vital factor in the spread of salinity.
Their project could be complemented by the work of other Murdoch researchers who have developed hybrid, salt-tolerant eucalypts and improved methods for seed production and germination of saltbush which could be used to revegetate salt-affected land.
Over the next three years industry and government collaborators will inject nearly $900,000 into advancing the work started during Mr Clarke's research for his doctorate under Dr Bell's supervision.
"My research has shown that there are five significant 'themes' in the geology of WA's agricultural region that affect the flow of water and the potential spread of salinity through permeability differences," Mr Clarke says. "It should be possible to identify each of these 'themes' in aerial geophysical surveys.
"Our aim will be generate maps of the five geological 'themes' and to assign relative permeabilities to each area.
"Using these permeability maps in landscape planning computer models will substantially improve our ability to predict and counter the spread of salinity."
Over the three years of the project Dr Bell, as chief investigator, and Mr Clarke, as co-ordinator, will collaborate with World Geoscience Corporation (the world leader in aerial geophysics), Agriculture WA, the Water and Rivers Commission, CSIRO's Divisions of Wildlife and Ecology, and Murdoch's department of Mathematics and Statistics.
Two other PhD students, working under the supervision of Dr Bell and Associate Professor Jen McComb, have made breakthroughs in the propagation of native trees and plants that can be planted on salt-affected land.
Research by Dr Rachel Oddie has demonstrated that it is possible to cross salt-tolerant Eucalyptus camaldulenis and Eucalyptus globulus, which has a higher pulp quality, to produce a commercially-valuable tree that can be used to rehabilitate agricultural areas degraded by salt.
Dr Melanie Strawbridge's research focussed on improving the propagation of saltbush which is salt-tolerant and a valuable fodder plant. Under normal circumstances saltbush, which has separate male and female plants, produces 'seed' that does not germinate well.
Dr Strawbridge has researched the factors affecting the saltbush's fruit filling, including, the ratio of male and female plants, and the plant's tolerance to flooding and levels of salinity. She also developed techniques for testing seed viability and germination.
This information is essential for successful seed production and successfully establishing seedlings on saline land.
See also
Cross-bred gum trees give hope
Fighting for forests and farmlands
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