scholarly journals Long-Term Biosolids Application on Land: Beneficial Recycling of Nutrients or Eutrophication of Agroecosystems?

Soil Systems ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Murray B. McBride

The impact of repeated application of alkaline biosolids (sewage sludge) products over more than a decade on soil concentrations of nutrients and trace metals, and potential for uptake of these elements by crops was investigated by analyzing soils from farm fields near Oklahoma City. Total, extractable (by the Modified Morgan test), and water-soluble elements, including macronutrients and trace metals, were measured in biosolids-amended soils and, for comparison, in soils that had received little or no biosolids. Soil testing showed that the biosolids-amended soils had higher pH and contained greater concentrations of organic carbon, N, S, P, and Ca than the control soils. Soil extractable P concentrations in the biosolids-amended soils averaged at least 10 times the recommended upper limit for agricultural soils, with P in the amended soils more labile and soluble than the P in control soils. Several trace elements (most notably Zn, Cu, and Mo) had higher total and extractable concentrations in the amended soils compared to the controls. A radish plant assay revealed greater phytoavailability of Zn, P, Mo, and S (but not Cu) in the amended soils. The excess extractable and soluble P in these biosolids-amended soils has created a long-term source of slow-release P that may contribute to the eutrophication of adjacent surface waters and contamination of groundwater. While the beneficial effects of increased soil organic carbon on measures of “soil health” have been emphasized in past studies of long-term biosolids application, the present study reveals that these benefits may be offset by negative impacts on soils, crops, and the environment from excessive nutrient loading.

CATENA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 151 ◽  
pp. 63-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Bouchoms ◽  
Zhengang Wang ◽  
Veerle Vanacker ◽  
Sebastian Doetterl ◽  
Kristof Van Oost

2010 ◽  
Vol 113-116 ◽  
pp. 1332-1335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ning Liu ◽  
Hong Bo He ◽  
Hong Tu Xie ◽  
Zhen Bai ◽  
Xu Dong Zhang

Fertilization is one of the essential managements to maintain and increase soil organic carbon (SOC) level in agroecosystems. It has been realized that fertilizer applications influenced the turnover of labile and refractory organic carbon pools in arable soil markedly. However, the dynamic of relatively refractory lignin in response to fertilization is still kept unclear. Therefore, the impact of long-term organic fertilization on the content and degradation degree of lignin in Mollisol was investigated. Lignin monomers were released by alkaline CuO oxidation method and quantified by gas chromatography (GC). At the time scale of decades, lignin was clearly accumulated in soil and the relative accumulation of lignin in SOC was evident after long-term organic fertilizer application. Compared with the unfertilized soil, lower acid to aldehyde ratios of vanillyl and syringyl units induced by organic fertilization suggested a lower degradation degree of lignin incorporated into soil to some extent. It could be concluded that long-term organic fertilization was an effective fertilizer practice for lignin accumulation in soil and SOC sequestration in Mollisol in northeast of China.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashim Kumar Saha ◽  
Apu Biswas ◽  
Abdul Qayyum Khan ◽  
Md. Mohashin Farazi ◽  
Md. Habibur Rahman

Long-term tea cultivation has led to degradation of the soil. Old tea soils require rehabilitation for restoring soil health. Soil rehabilitation by growing different green crops can break the chain of monoculture of tea. An experiment was conducted at The Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI) Farm during 2008-2011 to find out the efficiency of different green crops on the improvement of soil properties. Four green crops such as Guatemala, Citronella, Mimosa and Calopogonium were grown to develop the nutritional value of the degraded tea soil. Soil samples were collected and analyzed before and at the end of experiment. Soil pH was increased in all four green crops treated plots with the highest increase in Citronella treated plots (from 4.1 to 4.5). Highest content of organic carbon (1.19%) and total nitrogen (0.119%) were found in Mimosa and Calopogonium treated plots, respectively. Concentration of available phosphorus, calcium and magnesium in all green crops treated plots were above the critical values, while available potassium content was above the critical value in Guatemala, Citronella and Mimosa treated plots. Changes in soil pH and available potassium were significant, while changes in organic carbon content, total nitrogen and available calcium were insignificant. Changes in available phosphorus and magnesium were significant. The Agriculturists 2014; 12(2) 34-38


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen A. Schweizer ◽  
Carsten W. Mueller ◽  
Carmen Höschen ◽  
Pavel Ivanov ◽  
Ingrid Kögel-Knabner

AbstractCorrelations between organic carbon (OC) and fine mineral particles corroborate the important role of the abundance of soil minerals with reactive surfaces to bind and increase the persistence of organic matter (OM). The storage of OM broadly consists of particulate and mineral-associated forms. Correlative studies on the impact of fine mineral soil particles on OM storage mostly combined data from differing sites potentially confounded by other environmental factors. Here, we analyzed OM storage in a soil clay content gradient of 5–37% with similar farm management and mineral composition. Throughout the clay gradient, soils contained 14 mg OC g−1 on average in the bulk soil without showing any systematic increase. Density fractionation revealed that a greater proportion of OC was stored as occluded particulate OM in the high clay soils (18–37% clay). In low clay soils (5–18% clay), the fine mineral-associated fractions had up to two times higher OC contents than high clay soils. Specific surface area measurements revealed that more mineral-associated OM was related to higher OC loading. This suggests that there is a potentially thicker accrual of more OM at the same mineral surface area within fine fractions of the low clay soils. With increasing clay content, OM storage forms contained more particulate OC and mineral-associated OC with a lower surface loading. This implies that fine mineral-associated OC storage in the studied agricultural soils was driven by thicker accrual of OM and decoupled from clay content limitations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Dold ◽  
Herbst Michael ◽  
Weihermüller Lutz ◽  
Vereecken Harry

<p>The limitation of global warming to +1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels requires net-zero CO<sub>2</sub> emissions globally by mid-century and substantial removal of CO<sub>2</sub> thereafter. Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils has been proposed as a potential mitigation strategy. Aim of this study is to quantify current carbon storage and emission reduction potential in agricultural soils, and assess the impact of mitigation measures in a prognostic modeling approach. The land surface model Community Land Model 5.0 (CLM) is used to assess soil carbon changes in agricultural soils in Germany. The simulation domain was set up with an 8 x 8 km grid across Germany using recent land use and soil texture maps, and parameters for major field crops. The model was spun up for ~1500 years with a 30-year climate dataset. Preliminary results show that spinup-derived organic carbon density (OCD, 0-188 cm) was significantly related to Soil Grid v2 OCD (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.82), but only weakly related to field-measured OCD (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.21). The simulated OCD values in the upper 32 cm soil layer were lower in Northwestern Germany compared to Soil Grids. This is probably due to the intensive use of organic amendment application in the region, and CLM5 lacks a subroutine for simulating organic carbon application. In a next step, carbon storage for different climate projections (regional EUR11 RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 scenarios) and management systems from 2020 - 2100 will be investigated. We will present preliminary results and discuss improvements of CLM5 to better represent agricultural soils.</p>


2001 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Dumontet ◽  
H. Dinel ◽  
M. Schnitzer ◽  
T. Paré ◽  
A. Scopa

Industrialized societies are responsible for increasing environmental pollution by trace metals, and pathogenic micro-organisms associated with products and wastes of industrial processes and agricultural production, as well as household activities. The objective of this paper is to discuss the effect of composting on the behavior of trace metals and pathogenic micro-organisms, and to present the latest finding on sanitizing and stabilizing organic fractions and trace metals in composted biosolids. Evidence provided by long-term scientific studies in North America and Europe on toxic effects of trace metals on soil micro-organisms and on pathogenic micro-organisms suggests that revisions of the current guidelines on sludge applications on agricultural soils are needed to protect long-term soil fertility. In addition, the antagonism between harmful characteristics of biosolids and their usefulness for agriculture and land reclaiming purposes could be mitigated by using efficient composting treatments. The production and use of harmless organic wastes should be one of our highest priorities in order to protect our health and environment, and to hand over a sustainable agriculture to future generations. Key words: Composting, biosolids, pathogenic micro-organisms, trace metals, sanitization


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 3231-3247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayant Nirmalkar ◽  
Tsatsral Batmunkh ◽  
Jinsang Jung

Abstract. The impact of biomass burning (BB) on atmospheric particulate matter of <2.5 µm diameter (PM2.5) at Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, was investigated using an optimized tracer-based approach during winter and spring 2017. Integrated 24 h PM2.5 samples were collected on quartz-fiber filters using a 30 L min−1 air sampler at an urban site in Ulaanbaatar. The aerosol samples were analyzed for organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC), anhydrosugars (levoglucosan, mannosan, and galactosan), and water-soluble ions. OC was found to be the predominant species, contributing 64 % and 56 % to the quantified aerosol components in PM2.5 in winter and spring, respectively. BB was identified as a major source of PM2.5, followed by dust and secondary aerosols. Levoglucosan ∕ mannosan and levoglucosan ∕ K+ ratios indicate that BB in Ulaanbaatar mainly originated from the burning of softwood. Because of the large uncertainty associated with the quantitative estimation of OC emitted from BB (OCBB), a novel approach was developed to optimize the OC ∕ levoglucosan ratio for estimating OCBB. The optimum OC ∕ levoglucosan ratio in Ulaanbaatar was obtained by regression analysis between OCnon-BB (OCtotal–OCBB) and levoglucosan concentrations that gives the lowest coefficient of determination (R2) and slope. The optimum OC ∕ levoglucosan ratio was found to be 27.6 and 18.0 for winter and spring, respectively, and these values were applied in quantifying OCBB. It was found that 68 % and 63 % of the OC were emitted from BB during winter and spring, respectively. This novel approach can also be applied by other researchers to quantify OCBB using their own chemical measurements. In addition to OCBB, sources of OCnon-BB were also investigated through multivariate correlation analysis. It was found that OCnon-BB originated mainly from coal burning, vehicles, and vegetative emissions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 486-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
César Plaza ◽  
Hero T. Gollany ◽  
Guido Baldoni ◽  
Alfredo Polo ◽  
Claudio Ciavatta

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (18) ◽  
pp. 5551-5563 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Sciare ◽  
K. Oikonomou ◽  
O. Favez ◽  
E. Liakakou ◽  
Z. Markaki ◽  
...  

Abstract. Long-term (5-year) measurements of Elemental Carbon (EC) and Organic Carbon (OC) in bulk aerosols are presented here for the first time in the Mediterranean Basin (Crete Island). A multi-analytical approach (including thermal, optical, and thermo-optical techniques) was applied for these EC and OC measurements. Light absorbing dust aerosols were shown to poorly contribute (+12% on a yearly average) to light absorption coefficient (babs) measurements performed by an optical method (aethalometer). Long-range transport of agricultural waste burning from European countries surrounding the Black Sea was shown for each year during two periods (March–April and July–September). The contribution of biomass burning to the concentrations of EC and OC was shown to be rather small (20 and 14%, respectively, on a yearly basis), although this contribution could be much higher on a monthly basis and showed important seasonal and interannual variability. By removing the biomass burning influence, our data revealed an important seasonal variation of OC, with an increase by almost a factor of two for the spring months of May and June, whereas BC was found to be quite stable throughout the year. Preliminary measurements of Water Soluble Organic Carbon (WSOC) have shown that the monthly mean WSOC/OC ratio remains stable throughout the year (0.45±0.12), suggesting that the partitioning between water soluble and water insoluble organic matter is not significantly affected by biomass burning and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. A chemical mass closure performed in the fine mode (Aerodynamic Diameter, A.D.<1.5μm) showed that the mass contribution of organic matter (POM) was found to be essentially invariable during the year (monthly average of 26±5%).


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