Restoration of Plant and Animal Communities in a Sanitary Landfill: A 10‐year Case Study in Hong Kong

Abstract

This study was conducted in the South East New Territories landfill in Hong Kong, with the objectives to (i) investigate the plant and animal communities' establishment and performance within 10 years after restoration and (ii) provide important information on pioneer plants species selection recommendations for restoring sanitary landfills. The studying sites were re-vegetated in 2003, with 14 pioneer plant species, including Acacia auriculiformis, A. confusa and Schefflera heptaphylla, planted. In total, four permanent quadrats (10 m × 10 m) were used for monitoring at three restored sites (sites E, N and S) and the control site C. The soil properties and plant and animal communities inside plots were investigated annually in summer and winter between 2003 and 2014. The similarity of plant and animal communities between the restored and control sites was compared using Jaccard's index. Ten years after restoration, animal and plant communities were gradually established at all sites. No animal was introduced into the restored sites in 2003; however, there were 29, 31 and 44 animal species recorded at sites E, N and S, respectively, between 2003 and 2012. Within the studying period, 38 plant species (trees: 52·63%, shrub: 21·05%, herbs: 23·68% and climber: 2·63%) were recorded in all sites and 17 (36·84%) of them were self-seeding. Exotic species, such as those from the family Acacia and Mimosaceae, were dominant at all restored sites, which implies that exotic species are more competitive and suitable to be used as pioneer species in sanitary landfill restoration.

Relationship between hydraulic properties and plant coverage of the closed-landfill soils in Piacenza (Po Valley, Italy)

“…A lot of studies on landfills can be found in the literature -about root contamination by gas (Gilman et al, 1982), methane production (Themelis and Ulloa, 2007), microbiological studies (Boeckx et al, 1996) and ecological performance after the restoration of plant and animal communities Wong et al, 2015) -but nothing can be found about hydrological properties of cover soil in relation to plant coverage.…”

Soil indicators to assess the effectiveness of restoration strategies in dryland ecosystems

“…The "land degradation neutrality" target promoted by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) indicates that the progress made with restoration could compensate the impacts of degradation, stressing the importance of a quantitative evaluation process. Studies and attempts to implement restoration strategies in different dry environments are numerous, from rangelands to shrub and forest stands (Camprubi et al, 2015;Cortina et al, 2009;Fuentes et al, 2010;Roa-Fuentes et al, 2015;Zucca et al, 2015a, b), from agricultural ecosystems to mining sites and brownfields (Dickinson et al, 2005;de Moraes Sá et al, 2015;Hasanuzzaman et al, 2014;Oliveira et al, 2011;Stroosnijder, 2009;Toktar et al, 2016;Wong et al, 2015). Though restoring degraded drylands is also a complex issue, it can be pursued by means of several strategies, all of which consider soil characteristics, either directly or indirectly.…”

Landfill site suitability assessment by means of geographic information system analysis

“…To provide scientific data for future restoration management, Chen et al (2015) compared the ecological performances between natural sites and revegetated landfill sites and showed that, during the study period, there was a gradual change in the plant communities at restored sites and an increase in biodiversity. Research has also shown that exotic plant species may be more suitable for use as pioneer species in the restoration of sanitary landfills (Wong et al, 2015b) and also pioneer native species were much better than other native species (Wong et al, 2015a). Many research projects have been conducted that can be used to recover the degraded lands at this site and convert this degraded forest to a productive ecosystem in the future (Iwai et al, 2013;Courtney and Harrington, 2012;Mahmoud and El-kader, 2014;PazFerreiro et al, 2014;Mekonnen et al, 2014).…”