{
  "abstract": "Soil salinization threatens agricultural production, water management, and ecosystem health. Yet, how increasing aridity will reshape 21st-century soil salinity patterns across drylands, particularly in croplands, remains unclear. Here, we compile a relatively comprehensive global soil salinity dataset from the past two decades, projecting future dryland soil salinity dynamics using climate-driven machine learning models with multiple covariates, including dynamic dryland extent and human influences. Our results show an 8% expansion of global drylands saline soils under increasing aridity by 2100 (SSP5-8.5) relative to 2004–2023. Southwestern US, Mexico, southern Europe, central South America, eastern and southern Africa are highest-risk hotspots. We further show dryland croplands face serious salinization, especially irrigated systems, where half of these newly salinized areas project more than 4.9% (maize), 17.2% (dryland rice), 3.3% (sorghum), and 21.2% (wheat) potential production losses. Our findings inform long-term adaptation strategies to mitigate emerging salinization risks and sustain water and food security.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 12,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Dietian Yu",
      "orcid": "0009-0004-0074-2183"
    },
    {
      "name": "Nan Wang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Amirhossein Hassani"
    },
    {
      "name": "Saverio Perri"
    },
    {
      "name": "Yi Peng"
    },
    {
      "name": "Songchao Chen",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1245-0482"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jie Peng"
    },
    {
      "name": "Yulin Shangguan"
    },
    {
      "name": "Chen Zhang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jinwei Dong",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5687-803X"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ganlin Zhang",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5729-1062"
    },
    {
      "name": "Zhou Shi",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3914-5402"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/d15dh0x0q8f60.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41467-026-78622-6",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "d15dh0x0q8f60",
  "issns": [
    "2041-1723"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78622-6",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "1105|Climate change impacts on agriculture"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7222936181",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78622-6_reference.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-19",
  "publisher": "Springer Science and Business Media LLC",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/d15dh0x0q8f60.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:39Z",
      "native_id": "10.1038/s41467-026-78622-6",
      "source": "crossref",
      "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78622-6"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:1105|Climate change impacts on agriculture",
      "subfield": "ecology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Projected intensification of soil salinization in global drylands under future aridity increase",
  "title_text": "Projected intensification of soil salinization in global drylands under future aridity increase",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:39Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/d15dh0x0q8f60",
  "venue": "Nature Communications",
  "versions": []
}