Soil Quality Degradation Under Natural and Antropic Risk Factors and Possibility to
Give Them Back to Agriculture, a Step in Ecological Reconstruction

Maria Joiţa-Păcureanu^1,2, Gabriel Popescu² , Laureanţiu Ciornei², Florin Gabriel Anton¹, Victor Petcu^1,2,
Ioana Todirica², Simona Simion², Amalia Străteanu², Mariana Sandu²

¹Institutul Național de Cercetare Dezvoltare Agricolă Fundulea
²Centrul de Studii și Cercetări de Biodiversitate Agrosilvică, "Acad. David Davidescu", București

Keywords: soil degradation, saline soil, sunflower, good behavior.

Abstract: The EU politics for environment it means speeding of the green transition, the objective for 2050 year “A good life, in the planet limits”. The ecosystems sustain all the life forms, their health assuring the human health.
In present ecosystems are threatening by high exploitation, pollution, degradation. For this reason, the EU politics are focused on pollution reducing, biodiversity protection and recovering, also reducing the pressure on the environment.
One of the risk factors which produce decreasing biodiversity is soil degradation because of different factors.
Salinity is one of the most widespread soil degradation processes on the Earth. According to some estimates, the total area of salt-affected soil is about 1 billion hectares ((FAO and ITPS, 2015). 
High levels of soil salinity can be tolerated if salt-tolerant plants are grown. Sensitive crops lose their vigor already in slightly saline soils, most crops are negatively affected by (moderately) saline soils, and only salinity-resistant crops thrive in severely saline soils.
There have been studied 14 sunflower genotypes, lines and hybrids, in conditions of saline soils. Some important characteristics of sunflower have been affected, like plant height and head diameter, specially. There have been identified some genotypes which have good behavior in saline soil conditions.