Development of Agro-well Lands and Its impact on Soil Salinity in the North Central Dry Zone of Sri Lanka

Agro-well development in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka has been accelerated recently. Accordingly a significant land proportion has been converted to Agro-well based lands. This matter has been attracting the attention of policy makers as well as researchers because the understanding of the real situation has been a national level requirement. Therefore the current study was launched in the North Central part of the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka during the period of 2014-2015. It was a comparative assessment of the salinity levels of the Agro-well lands and rain-fed lands. Further, the soil salinity data was correlated with the cropping duration of the Agro-well lands. The first part of this study has revealed that the soil salinity levels of Agro-well lands were in the very low category (less than 0.15 dS/m). Comparatively, salinity status has been developed in 66 % of Agro-well lands, than of rain-fed lands. However, it has been revealed that soil salinity has increased with the increase of cropping duration in Agro-well lands. Accordingly, after the next 25 years E/C values can be increased up to medium salinity level (up to 0.4 dS/m).