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Restoration of rare earth mine areas: organic amendments and phytoremediation
- Source :
- Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 22:17151-17160
- Publication Year :
- 2015
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2015.
-
Abstract
- Overexploitation of rare earth mine has caused serious desertification and various environmental issues, and ecological restoration of a mining area is an important concern in China. In this study, experiments involving dry grass landfilling, chicken manure broadcasting, and plant cultivation were carried out to reclaim a rare earth mine area located in Heping County, Guangdong Province, China. The prime focus was to improve soil quality in terms of nutrients, microbial community, enzyme activity, and physicochemical properties so as to reclaim the land. After 2 years of restoration, an increase of organic matter (OM), available potassium (K), available phosphorus (P) levels, and acid phosphatase (ACP) activity and a reduction of the available nitrogen (N) level and urease (URE) activity in soil were achieved compared to the original mined land. The nutrients and enzyme activities in soil with 5 years of restoration were close to or surpass those in the unexploited land as control. The bulk density, total porosity, water holding capacity, pH, and electrical conductivity (EC) of soil were improved, and the number of cultivable microorganisms and the bacterial diversity in soil were greatly increased with time during ecological restoration, especially for surface soil. Furthermore, the artificial vegetation stably grew at the restored mining sites. The results indicated that organic amendments and phytoremediation could ecologically restore the rare earth mining sites and the mined land could finally be planted as farmland.
- Subjects :
- Crops, Agricultural
China
Conservation of Natural Resources
Nitrogen
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
media_common.quotation_subject
Poaceae
Mining
Trees
Soil
Nutrient
Environmental protection
Soil Pollutants
Environmental Chemistry
Organic matter
Fertilizers
Restoration ecology
Soil Microbiology
media_common
chemistry.chemical_classification
Environmental engineering
Phosphorus
General Medicine
Vegetation
Pollution
Soil quality
Manure
Phytoremediation
Biodegradation, Environmental
chemistry
Desertification
Potassium
Environmental science
Metals, Rare Earth
Chicken manure
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 16147499 and 09441344
- Volume :
- 22
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Environmental Science and Pollution Research
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e436c601f3dc027d02ed44c92350451b