盐湖学的研究与展望

Salinology:Research and Prospects

人类对盐湖的认识与开发利用历史悠久,例如开采盐湖食盐,可追溯至距今4600年前,此阶段称为盐湖研发萌芽阶段。以近代科技理论方法对盐湖研究与开发大致可划分为3个阶段:1大约19世纪末至20世纪初,以物理化学为主导的石盐、碱、硼小规模开发阶段;2 20世纪中期至60年代,暂称为传统地质学、生物学和化工研究与中小规模无机盐开发阶段;3 20世纪70年代以来现代地质学、生物学、化学和化工等多学科研究以及大规模无机盐、盐生物、疗养—旅游综合利用与深加工阶段。但是,不少问题依然存在,如单学科研究而较少相互融合,盐湖资源“单打一”勘查开发现象还较多,已开发的盐湖环境和资源有不少受到不同程度破坏等。盐湖学提出与建立,既是基于盐湖与盐境综合性自然资源特点和盐湖科学自身研究开发的历程,也是有其国内外科技与经济发展需求的背景。盐湖学是一门新的基础性、综合性应用学科,它注重用多学科综合集成研究盐湖,这有利于全面揭示古今盐湖的成因与演化规律,有利于综合评价和充分发掘盐湖多元资源效益,所以它有别于传统的单学科研究模式。它注重盐湖与其盐体系基础研究与应用工程技术相结合,避免时有发生的两者相互脱节现象,从而形成相互衔接的“一条龙”研究模式,这为发展绿色盐湖产业、盐境保护与盐湖区可持续发展提供科学支撑。

Our understanding, exploitation and utilization of salt lakes have a long history. For example, mining of table salt from salt lakes may be traced back to 4600 a BP. This stage is called the embryonic stage of salt lake research and development. The history of salt lake research and development by means of modern scientific theories and methods may be broadly divided into three stages： （1） the stage from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, which was mainly marked by physical and chemical research and smallscale development of halite, alkalis and boron; （2） the stage form the middle of the 20th century to the 1960s, which is temporarily called the stage of research on traditional geology, biology and the chemical industry and medium- and small-scale development of inorganic salts; and （3） the stage from the 1970s to present, which is characterized by research on multiple disciplines such as modern geology, biology, chemistry and chemical products, large-scale comprehensive use and intensive processing of inorganic salts and halobionts and salt lake recuperation and tourism. However, these researches were mostly monodisciplinary and seldom integrated, the phenomenon of exploration and development of only one saline mineral is of common occurrence and in many cases the salt lake environment and resources that have been developed are subjected to different degrees of damage. The presentation and establishment of ＂salinology＂ （halolimnic or saline lake research） is not only based on the characteristics of salt lakes and comprehensive saline environment natural resources and the course of research and development of salt lake research itself but also has the background of demands of scientific and economic development in China and abroad. Salinology is a new branch of fundamental and comprehensive applied science focused on the multidisciplinary and integrated study of salt lakes. Such research is advantageous to revealing the origin and evolution of ancient and contemporary salt lakes in an all-round way and to making a comprehensive evaluation and fully exploring the benefits of multi-component resources of salt lakes, so it is different from the traditional monodisciplinary research model. It attaches importance to the integration of the fundamental study of salt lakes and its saline systems with applied engineering technologies so as to avoid the divorce between them that occur sometimes and form a model of large-scale, chain-like, coordinated research, which can provide a scientific support for the development of the ＂green＂ salt lake industry, protection of the salt environment and sustainable development of salt lake districts.