If you live in the UK that's equivalent to losing the area of the Isle of Wight every 20 weeks. Or if you live in Western Australia, it's the area of our favourite holiday island, Rottnest, every single week. And it's not only the agricultural land which is at risk. In the early days of settlement, it was common for country towns to be sited in the valleys, where spring water or shallow wells could provide for domestic supplies. Today the valleys are the first places to be laid waste by the white death.
Brickwork begins to fret, leading to loss of load-bearing capacity and eventual structural failure.
Valuable infrastructure such as roads and railways, hospitals and wheat silos will be abandoned as salt rises to destabilise foundations. And as we approach the close of the century, we face the fact that farming is not the profitable business it once was. Money is scarce, and certainly is not there to replace the investments made in more hopeful years. Salt has been precipitated through rainfall through millions upon millions of years. Salt is brought over the land from the fine aerosol spray thrown up from the oceans.