Salinity Distribution in Kneehill County

Kneehill County has 662 saline seeps which occupy a total of 2,210 ha (5,462 ac), representing about 0.65% of the county's total area. The visibly saline areas have such high salinity levels that annual crops cannot be grown and forage crops have significantly reduced yields. Often the lands surrounding the visibly saline areas are also weakly saline, resulting in reduced yields especially for salt-sensitive crops.

Salinity distribution by type in Kneehill County

Salinity type	Number of seeps	Area		Percent of total saline area
		(ac)	(ha)
Contact/slope change	313	1 273.85	515.53	23.3
Outcrop	177	1 262.66	511.00	23.1
Artesian	9	303.10	122.68	5.6
Depression bottom	130	1 368.54	553.85	25.1
Coulee bottom	33	1 253.42	507.26	22.9
Total	662	5 461.62	2 210.32	100.0

Depression bottom salinity occupies the largest proportion of the County's saline area (25.1% of the total saline area), followed by contact/slope change salinity (23.3%), outcrop salinity (23.1%), coulee bottom salinity (22.9%), and artesian salinity (5.6%). There are many small contact and slope change seeps, and fewer but larger depression bottom and coulee bottom seeps.

Number of Saline seeps by type in Kneehill County

Please refer to Salinity Classification, Mapping and Management in Alberta for more information.

For more information about the content of this document, contact Karen Raven.
This document is maintained by Laura Thygesen.
This information published to the web on February 12, 2004.
Last Reviewed/Revised on December 4, 2017.