Dr. Palaniswamy Thangavel
Department of Environmental Science, School of Life Sciences, Periyar University at Salem, India

10. október 2018 | 14:30 | miestnosť F234

Abstract

According to the Status of the World's Soil Resources Report, soil pollution has been identified as main soil threats affecting soils and their ecosystem services. Currently, we are facing a global soil crisis as the world’s arable land available per person has decreased from about 0.45 to 0.25 ha whereas the population has almost tripled over the last 50 years (FAO 2011) and an increase in food demand by 70% in 2050 with 220,000 new mouths to feed every day with the existing land area. Based on the global awareness of soil quality, several reports are existed to the extent of contaminated sites and possible remediation methods globally (FAO 2018). Further, UNEP involved developing a concrete solution to address these issues under the framework of SDGs. Depending upon the site condition and type of the contaminants, several phytotechnologies has been used. In addition to reclamate the contaminated environments, the by-products obtained from these phytotechnologies are added benefits to the stakeholders. ‘Phytomining’ and ‘Agromining’ strategies have been deployed to extract ores from the hyperaccumulators using pyrolysis which could provide local communities with an alternative type of agriculture on degraded lands; farming not for food crops, but for metals such as nickel (Ni).

 The objectives of the lecture are:

(i) to search for plants suitable for phytoremediation strategies according to the site conditions and type of the contaminants

(ii) to understand the mechanism behind the tolerance of the metallophytes used for reclamation studies in harsh environmental conditions and

(iii) the possibility to recovery of metals and other value added products