Project objectives:
The LIFE I+DARTS team has found that plants such as the birch, the willow or the yellowhead and leguminous plants such as the melilotus alba can accumulate heavy
metals and Arsenic.
Project experts have also detected the presence of certain endophyte bacteria that resist high concentrations of Arsenic and the existence of fungi that
favour the processes of decontamination. These advances open the door to using these biological techniques for soils that have been catalogued as contaminated
for more than a decade.
The three basic strategies for soil remediation are excavation and disposal in landfills, containment, and removal of the contaminants through physic-chemical
or biological technologies. LIFE I+DARTS only considers the last possibility because the others are more expensive and less sustainable options.
The team is engaged in five basic actions over the course of the four-year project: biogeochemical site characterisation, and human health risk assessment;
soil remediation at pilot scale and a comparison between green remediation technologies and physic-chemical technologies; the development of the protocol
as a tool for the management of Arsenic-polluted soils and the dissemination of information on the project activities and results.
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Project
Summary:
Soil pollution causes severe environmental and economic impacts, as well as risks for the human health and ecosystems. The closure of mining and industrial
facilities in many sites across Europe has revealed large amounts of contaminated land with uncertain future uses. Decontaminating and recovering such soil
is a long, complex and expensive process, which places a large burden on enterprises or public administrations.
Land in Asturias, Spain, for example, is shown to be contaminated with Arsenic (usually accompanied by heavy metals) which is complicated to remove. The
LIFE I+DARTS project, co-financed by LIFE+, aims to address this problem by developing a protocol to enable the recovery of soils contaminated with Arsenic
and heavy metals in former mining and industrial sites.
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Professor Paul Bardos