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Arid Land Geography ›› 2026, Vol. 49 ›› Issue (1): 80-93.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2025.079

• Earth Surface Process • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Quantitative modeling of evaporation resistance in salt crusts under varying influencing factors

LI Jialin1,2,3(), LI Xinhu1,2,3(), WANG Hongchao1,2,3, CUI Mengmeng2, GUO Yubo1,2,3, JIN Haodong1,3, REN Xiaoxiao1,3   

  1. 1 State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Key Laboratory of Ecological Safety and Sustainable Development in Arid Lands, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, Xinjiang, China
    2 National Field Scientific Observation and Research Station of Aksu Oasis Farmland Ecosystem, Aksu 843017, Xinjiang, China
    3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2025-02-18 Revised:2025-05-07 Online:2026-01-25 Published:2026-01-18
  • Contact: LI Xinhu E-mail:lijialin22@mails.ucas.ac.cn;lixinhu@ms.xjb.ac.cn

Abstract:

Salt crusts are a typical surface structure in arid regions and significantly affect soil-atmosphere water transfer processes. The evaporation resistance of salt crusts is a key controlling parameter in the soil water-vapor evaporation process. However, quantitative understanding of salt crust evaporation resistance under varying influencing factors remains limited. Therefore, this study employs simulation experiments and theoretical analyses to dynamically monitor and analyze salt crust formation and the evolution of evaporation resistance under the influences of soil particle size (fine sand: 0.10-0.25 mm; coarse sand: 0.50-0.85 mm), radiation (200 W·m-2, 500 W·m-2, and 800 W·m-2), salt concentration (5.0% and 17.5% NaCl), wind speed (3.5 m·s-1 and 8.0 m·s-1), hydraulic conditions (with and without fixed groundwater), and evolution time. Using the Shapley additive explanation method, we quantified the contributions of the various factors and ranked their relative importance. The results were as follows: (1) Salt crust evaporation resistance increased continuously over time. At the end of the experiment, the maximum evaporation resistance (9.39×104 s·m-1) occurred under the DL3 treatment (5.0% NaCl, no fixed groundwater, 800 W·m-2 radiation, fine sand), whereas the minimum resistance (293.08 s·m-1) was observed under the WH2 treatment (5.0% NaCl, fixed groundwater, 8.0 m·s-1 wind speed, fine sand). (2) The contribution ranking of the influencing factors was: hydraulic condition>radiation>evolution time>soil particle size>salt concentration>wind speed. Among these factors, radiation exerted a significant positive effect, whereas soil particle size had a negative impact on salt crust evaporation resistance. These findings provide theoretical support for the quantitative characterization of salt crust evaporation resistance.

Key words: salt crust, evaporation resistance, influencing factors, SHAP method