| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4389429 | Ecological Engineering | 2014 | 8 Pages |
•An environmental friendly management of marine dredged materials is presented.•Viability of the elaboration of a technosol from residues was studied.•Salts and particle size of the dredged materials have emerged as the main features.•Desalination and composting processes have led to a suitable technosol.•High germination indices were obtained using the proposed manufactured technosol.
An alternative environmental friendly management of marine dredged material is presented via elaboration of a technosol. Technosols are a new group of soils that are strongly influenced by the technical human activity. Futhermore, they could be elaborated from wastes and employed in the subsequent regeneration of degraded or polluted soils. Thereby, these materials are no longer considered as waste and a value-added product is generated.In this work, preliminary assays have shown that the dredged sediment itself cannot be used as a soil due to its texture, which causes a bad aeration and poor drainage together with crusting phenomena. Consequently, amendments for the dredged sediment using different materials were tested in order to improve physicochemical properties of the manufactured soil. However, these enhancements barely overcome the growing difficulties of the dredged sediment and do not represent a feasible economical option. Thus, a composting process of the dredged material with a waste of high organic content was evaluated in order to obtain suitable properties and composition of technosol. Furthermore, phytotoxicity tests have revealed that the salts content in the studied dredged sediment inhibited the growth of the seeds. Therefore, desalination of the sediments appeared to be mandatory in the elaboration of the technosol. Finally, the technosol obtained after the composting of the desalinated sediment has led to germination indices higher than 320%.
Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide
