**An Overview of Hazardous Impacts of Soil Salinity in Crops, Tolerance Mechanisms, and Amelioration through Selenium Supplementation**

**Muhammad Kamran 1,**†**, Aasma Parveen 2,**†**, Sunny Ahmar 3,\*, Za** ff**ar Malik 2, Sajid Hussain 4, Muhammad Sohaib Chattha 3, Muhammad Hamzah Saleem 3, Muhammad Adil 5, Parviz Heidari 6 and Jen-Tsung Chen 7,\***


Received: 26 October 2019; Accepted: 20 December 2019; Published: 24 December 2019

**Abstract:** Soil salinization is one of the major environmental stressors hampering the growth and yield of crops all over the world. A wide spectrum of physiological and biochemical alterations of plants are induced by salinity, which causes lowered water potential in the soil solution, ionic disequilibrium, specific ion e ffects, and a higher accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). For many years, numerous investigations have been made into salinity stresses and attempts to minimize the losses of plant productivity, including the e ffects of phytohormones, osmoprotectants, antioxidants, polyamines, and trace elements. One of the protectants, selenium (Se), has been found to be e ffective in improving growth and inducing tolerance against excessive soil salinity. However, the in-depth mechanisms of Se-induced salinity tolerance are still unclear. This review refines the knowledge involved in Se-mediated improvements of plant growth when subjected to salinity and suggests future perspectives as well as several research limitations in this field.

**Keywords:** salinity; selenium (Se); crops; reactive oxygen species (ROS); enzymatic anti-oxidative system
