Soil salinization and sodication are of great concern in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Salt-affected soils are widely distributed in India which covers about 6.73 million hectare (Mha) of land of which 3.77 and 2.95 Mha are sodic and saline, respectively. About 2.0 Mha of abandoned sodic land is lying unutilized in north India only. Besides, rapid salinization and sodication of land in the irrigated landscape is inflicting unacceptable environment damages. Efforts are underway to rehabilitate such lands in agriculture and forestry sectors as per country’s policies. Several institutions are providing science and technology support to manage these lands in productive land-use systems. In this study, monoculture plantations of Terminalia arjuna, Prosopis juliflora, a mixed forest ecosystem and agroecosystem (cropland), which were developed by CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute on degraded sodic lands a few years ago, were evaluated for their effectiveness in order to reclaim and rehabilitate degraded sodic lands. Physicochemical, nutritional, biological and biochemical soil properties were assessed in rehabilitated land-use systems, non-sodic soils and degraded sodic lands from two depths (0-15 and 15-30 cm). Afforestation on such lands with monoculture and mixed species and diversified agroecosystem reclaims the soils with different efficiencies. Physicochemical properties like bulk density, pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) decreased with the effect of afforestation and cropping over the years; whereas water holding capacity (WHC), soil organic carbon (SOC), soil nutrients increased considerably. Microbial biomass (MB) [carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus], microbial counts, CO 2 flux and enzyme activities (dehydrogenase, β-glucosidase, protease and acidic phosphatase) showed significant improvement in the soil quality of rehabilitated sites. In comparison to sodic soil, at 0-15 cm soil depth of reclaimed land use systems, SOC, nitrogen, phosphorus, MB (carbon and nitrogen) and activities of studies soil enzymes were significantly ... 전체 초록 보기