Irrigation of landfill leachates in energy forests - A technique to recover nutrients from municipal solid wastes
Författare
Summary, in English
From an ecological point of view it is important to close nutrient cycles by recirculating mineral nutrients from the urban society back to agriculture and forestry, and thereby obtaining a sustainable resource utilisation. A part of this cycle is illustrated by irrigation of bioreactor landfill leachates on short rotation forests. This paper presents a budget for nutrients and heavy metals, beginning with the leachates and ending with the harvested tree fraction. The hypotheses were: The applied minerals deliver nutrients to the trees. The nutrient content in the accumulating biomass corresponds to the amount of mineral nutrients applied. The concentrations of heavy metals in the trees will remain low. The uptake of elements in birch was for P 35%, Ca 1.2%, Cd 64%, Cu 10%, Mn 19%, Ni 0.11%, and for Zn 26% of the supplied amounts. It was concluded that nutrients, with some exceptions, are supplied in sufficient amounts from the irrigated leachates to achieve optimal biomass growth, that the amounts of ions immobilised by the plants were significantly lower compared to the applied amounts, and that the concentrations of heavy metals are not increasing in the trees after irrigation. The overall conclusion is that a leachate irrigation system is efficient if the available vegetated land area is large enough for effective nutrient uptake, but the nutrient ratio may need to be balanced to meet the needs of the plants.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2004
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
213-224
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Water, Air and Soil Pollution
Volym
154
Issue
1-4
Länkar
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Springer
Ämne
- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
Nyckelord
- leachate
- nutrient
- landfill
- irrigation
- heavy metal
- Betula
- birch
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1573-2932