Abstract:The situation for food security and cultivated land security is getting increasing severe in China, and this addressed imminence requirements of the management, amelioration, and agricultural utilization of reserve soil resources such as saline soil, acid soil, aeolian sandy soil, and edaphic barren soil. Among them, salt-affected soil was regarded as the most potential reserve soil type in agricultural amelioration and utilization owing to its abundance and relatively suitable water and heat conditions in the saline areas. This paper summarized the resource conditions, status quo of utilization, existing problems and prospect of the management and utilization of salt-affected soil in China, the achievements and viewpoints of the research team of the authors were also included. The potential of the management and utilization of salt-affected soil was generally enormous in China. With the continuous recovery and improvement in the recent 40 years, the salt-affected soil resource exhibited the trends including decline in the total area, decrease in the proportion of heavily salinized soil, aggravation of soil salinization in the local areas, increase of abandoned land, and the increasing inhibition of water resource. Along with the implement of a series of key projects of science and technology in China, 8 technological architectures consisting of over 40 practical technologies was developed. These technologies mainly focused on multi-scale assessment and precision planning of salt-affected soil resources, salt restriction by blocking soil evaporation using agronomic measures, enhancing leaching efficiency using engineering and agronomic measures, salt control by optimizing drainage and irrigation system using water-saving practices, and growing salt-tolerant crops or halophytes in heavily salinized and abandoned soil, etc.. However, we are still faced with many pending problems, such as lack of systemic technological architecture of classified management, low engineering degree of the present technologies, short of long-term management and protection, loose connection between technologies and basic farmland infrastructure construction and industrial policies. These problems resulted in a lot of consequences like the difficulty in the generalization of present achievements, instability of the management effects, deficiency in the investment, and low enthusiasm of social participation. Based upon the above status, authors proposed the innovative development idea of "the whole industry chain", which combined the fundamental research, development of frontier technologies, application and demonstration, industry promotion, and commercial exploration. Using this novel mode which assembled facets of production, teaching, research, capital and customers, we would establish the basic theoretical system and key technological system of classified management of salt-affected soil and the high efficient utilization of water, soil, and biological resources, construct the engineering models of classified management of salt-affected soil, carry out the engineering generalization and demonstration in the saline areas depending on the corporation of multi departments, and attract the new business entities and social forces to participate the industrial development. This work would help to create a template for the efficient management and high-value utilization of barrier resources in China.