High anthropogenic activities are constantly causing increased soil degradation and thus soil health and safety are becoming an important issue. The soil quality is deteriorating at an alarming rate in the neighborhood of smelters as a result of heavy metal deposition. Organic biowastes, also produced through anthropogenic activities, provide some solutions for remediation and management of degraded soils through their use as a substrate. Biowastes, due to their high content of organic compounds, have the potential to improve soil quality, plant productivity, and microbial activity contributing to higher humus production. Biowaste use also leads to the immobilization and stabilization of heavy metals, carbon sequestration, and release of macro and micronutrients. Increased carbon sequestration through biowaste use helps us in mitigating climate change and global warming. Soil amendment by biowaste increases soil activity and plant productivity caused by stimulation in shoot and root length, biomass production, grain yield, chlorophyll content, and decrease in oxidative stress. However, biowaste application to soils is a debatable issue due to their possible negative effect of high heavy metal concentration and risks of their accumulation in soils. Therefore, regulations for the use of biowastes as fertilizer or soil amendment must be improved and strictly employed to avoid environmental risks and the entry of potentially toxic elements into the food chain. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on the effects of biowastes on soil remediation, plant productivity, and soil organic carbon sequestration.
The commonly used and developing engineering environmental technologies do not remain neutral for an ecosystem. The deepening climate changes are generally considered as the effects of human activities. There is thus no doubt that any human interference in the environment should be comprehensively checked at the beginning for all its positive and negative aspects for the environment as well as society health. There are two different analytical tools useful in environmental management: life cycle assessment (LCA) and risk assessment (RA). The first follows the product from “from birth to the grave” summing the environmental impact at all stages of its “life” including such elements like producing, used electricity, transport and many others. LCA refers to quantification and classification of all effects at all life stages and provides direct and indirect possible environmental interactions. On the other hand, risk assessment focuses on linking stressors and its possibilities and severity. RA tools reveal environmental and human health impacts of strictly separated elements, providing insight as to which emission consists of an important threat. This paper is focused on summarizing two the most used methods and tools for supporting the decision making process in use of environmental engineering technologies. In this paper, the fundamental differences between LCA and RA and benefits from their use has been contained.
Carbon storage in soil increases along with remediation of post-mining soils. Despite many studies on the issue of carbon sequestration in soils, there is a knowledge gap in the potential and mechanisms of C sequestration in post-mining areas. This research, including nuclear magnetic resonance analysis, determines the soil organic carbon formation progress in a long-term study of limestone (S1), and lignite (S2) post-mining soil under different remediation stages. The main remediation target is reforesting; however, S2 was previously amended with sewage sludge. The study showed that for S1, the O-alkyl groups were the dominant fraction in sequestered soil. However, for S2, increased fractions of acetyl-C and aromatic C groups within remediation progress were observed. The remediation of S1 resulted in improved hydrophobicity and humification; however, the decrease in aromatic groups’ formation and C/N ratio was noted. For S2, we noticed an increase for all indicators for sequestered C stability, which has been assigned to the used sewage sludge in remediation techniques. While both post-mining soils showed huge potential for C sequestration, S2 showed much higher properties of sequestered C indicating its higher stabilization which can suggest that soils non-amended with sewage sludge (S1) require more time for stable storage of C.
The present study experimentally investigated two different open-cast post-mining areas with different remediation methods for the vertical distribution of sequestered soil organic carbon (SOC). The study has been performed for two soil layers (0–15 cm, and 15–30 cm) for the four areas with different remediation advancement (up to 20 years) at both studied post-mining soils: the limestone post-mining soil remediated with embankment and lignite post-mining soil remediated with sewage sludge. The study revealed that SOC is more stable within soil depths for lignite post-mining soil remediated with sewage sludge in comparison to the limestone post-mining soil remediated with embankment. The lignite post-mining soil remediated with sewage sludge showed a better hydrophobicity, humidity, aromaticity, and C/N ratio according to the 13C NMR. Therefore, in that soil, an increased microbial community has been observed. The study observed a positive correlation between GRSP content with a fungi community within soil depths. For lignite post-mining soil remediated with sewage sludge, the activity of ureases and dehydrogenases was generally lower compared to the post-mining soil remediation with embankment. The investigation found good parameters of Ce and NCER which for both studied areas were negative which indicate for the privilege of the higher capturing of CO2 over its release from the soil into the atmosphere. The study finds no relevant changes in SOC, POXC, TC, and LOI content within soil depth and remediation age. Due to the lack of a possible well-describing indicator of the vertical distribution of SOC stability in post-mining remediation soil, we proposed two different indicators for differentially managed post-mining soil remediations. The model of calculation of vertical SOC variability index can be universally used for different post-mining soils under remediation, however, both proposed calculated indexes are unique for studied soils. The proposed model of an index may be helpful for remediation management, C sequestration prediction, and lowering the carbon footprint of mining activity.
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