The Minqin Oasis is situated in arid inland, where is also a sensitive region for the global climate and environment change, so the ecological environment in Minqin Oasis is extremely delicate. Therefore, it has very important significance to analyze the spatial distribution pattern of soil water and salt in Minqin Oasis. 

Data of water and salt of 230 sampling sites in the Minqin oasis were available in 2010, allowing us to investigate spatial distributional characteristics of soil water and salt contents, characterize the distribution of saline soils, and identify potential reasons of soil salinization using statistical and geostatistical techniques.  

Results indicated that the soil water content was higher in southwest and lower in northeast. The soil salt content was higher in south and west and lower in north and east. From Baqu to Huqu, the value of EC_1:5 increased from 0.07 dS/m to 5.99 dS/m. According to classification of salinization, no-salinization soils occupied 19.13%, 10.44% and 16.96%, respectively. Drought climatic conditions, rich salt origins, saline groundwater and unreasonable human activities have had a vital impact on the development of soil salinization. 

This program is financially supported by the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 91025002), the General Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30970492) and the National Key Technology R&D Program (No.2012BAC08B05). This paper has been published on the Journal of Arid Land Resources and Environment, Vol. 27, No. 11, Nov. 2013.