Effect of salinity on soil nutrients and plant health

Abstract

Salinity is one of the most studied abiotic factors affecting soil and plant health in most of the arid and semiarid ecosystems across the globe. It affects the soil by altering the physical, chemical, and biological properties such as soil pH, bulk density, nutrient imbalance, moisture availability, and microbial diversity. These changes in the soil properties further affect the plant health by creating unfavorable conditions like osmotic stress, ion toxicity, low nutrient bioavailability, altered plant-pathogen interactions, etc. However, in natural conditions, both biotic and abiotic factors interact; therefore, plants have to defend themselves against multiple stresses simultaneously. Remarkably, plants have developed a variety of mechanisms to survive under the stressful condition with an alteration in the different plant processes. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of salinity imbalance soil nutritional and microbial status on plant health and also summarize the appropriate management practices to overcome salinity conditions.