The ecological shelterbelt engineering along the Tarim Desert Highway with length of 436 km is an important "green corridor" in the Taklimakan desert. The irrigation for desert highway shelterbelt depends on underground salty water mined in situ along the desert highway. There are 110 irrigation motor-pumped wells, and the designed irrigation flux is 3.6 L·h^-1 and the irrigation duration is 6 h. A comparative experiment of drip irrigation and root-zone irrigation were conducted in the study to assess the water use efficiency of drip irrigation of the desert highway shelterbelt. Results illustrated that the water use efficiency of drip irrigation was less than 50%, and there were several problems such as evaporation loss of water by surface soil layer, low water use efficiency, etc, in the application of drip irrigation along the Tarim Desert Highway. The research provides information on the improvement of irrigation water use efficiency in desert highway shelterbelt.

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Vertical distributions of soil water content at 12h,36h or 6d after a 6-h drip irrigation duration

Vertical distributions of soil water content at 12h after a 6-h drip irrigation duration

Vertical distributions of soil water content at 24hafter a 24-h drip irrigation duration