Abstract

Soil pollution is one of the most soil relevant threats recognized in the world. Contamination affects soil qualityand soil capacity to react against several land degradation processes (erosion, organic depletion, desertification,etc.). The identification of opportune strategies to hinder pollution is a fundamental requirement to restore soilquality. In particular, large attentions have got the techniques, which promote the decontamination, and at thesame time, improve fertility allowing a new use of a soil restored.In this work we present a preliminary study to assess the use of compost (an organic fertilizer produced througha process of transformation and controlled stabilization of selected organic waste at the source) in remediating aheavily polluted soil in southern Italy. The study site is located in Taranto city (Apulia Region) and is contaminatedpredominantly by heavy metals and lightly by organic toxic compounds such us polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).An exhaustive chemical characterization has been carried out on soil samples and then, a treatment with compostwas applied on the study site. Successively, two data acquisition campaigns have been realized (after 4 and 7months by compost treatment, respectively).Soil chemical analyses of texture, electrical conductivity, pH, organic carbon content, total nitrogen, availablephosphorous, carbonate and water content have been carried out to investigate soil properties.In the polluted site chemical analyses of characterization showed low content of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous)and high level of carbonate. Heavy metals screenings, carried out through ICP-MS equipment, evidenceda massive contamination by Be, Se, Sn, Pb, Cr, Zn, while GC-MS investigations revealed a lower pollution byPCBs.The results of the monitoring campaigns showed a consistent reduction of the heavy metals concentrations: ahigher decrease is observed after 7 months by compost treatment. At the same time, a considerable increase oforganic carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus is also registered.The overall results suggest that the use of compost contributed to improve soil physico-chemical properties andpromote a relevant decrease of pollution suggesting that a process of soil quality restoration is performing.

Autore Pugliese

• Calabrese Angelantonio , Ancona Valeria , Uricchio Vito Felice

Tutti gli autori

• V. Ancona; C. Campanale; A. Calabrese; V.F. Uricchio ; S. Regano

Titolo volume/Rivista

Geophysical research abstracts

Anno di pubblicazione

2014

ISSN

1607-7962

ISBN

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

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Numero di citazioni Scopus

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Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

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