Elevated salinity in soil, groundwater, and surface waters can be detrimental to crop yield, soil health, drinking water, and surface water environmental conditions. We perform research aimed at assessing the mobilization, transport, and fate of salinity species (salt ions) in watershed systems, including: irrigated agricultural stream-aquifer systems, upland catchments, rangelands, and urban areas. Salt sources include natural salt minerals and various forms of road salt.

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Our group has developed salinity transport models for both watershed systems and groundwater systems:

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​​SWAT-Salt: modified SWAT modeling code to simulate salt ion fate and transport at the watershed scale (source code is here)

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UZF-RT3D: modified UZF-RT3D modeling code to simulate salt ion fate and transport in large-scale irrigated aquifer systems.

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For both models, the salinity chemistry module that includes precipitation-dissolution, cation exchange, and complexation was developed by Dr. Saman Tavakoli-Kivi.

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