Translocations,conservation, and climate change: use of restoration sites as protorefuges and protorefugia

High levels of human activity have affected the quality and usability of the natural landscape, leading to habitat degradation, loss of connectivity between sites, and reduced chances of long‐term survival for individual species. In line with conservation policy, ecological restoration practitioners try to improve degraded sites by means of reestablishing species lost from these sites, thereby returning ecological functionality and maintaining biological diversity. It may appear difficult to integrate the long‐term potential impacts of climate change within restoration strategies. However, more refined climate projections and species distribution models provide us with better understanding of likely scenarios, enabling us to consider future proofing as an integral part of the design of restoration sites, aiding plant conservation. We believe that it is possible to go one step further with a closer integration of restoration and conservation objectives. We introduce the novel concepts of “protorefuges” and “protorefugia”—restoration sites that threatened species can be translocated to, where the restoration design can be specifically adapted to help reduce the decline of threatened species at the leading and trailing edges (respectively) of bioclimatic envelope shifts. This is particularly relevant for nuclear decommissioning sites, which may be free from human activity for decades to centuries.     

Bioremediation – prospects for the future application of innovative applied biological research

It has been estimated that there may be as much as 300 000 ha in the UK where contamination from previous industrial land use has occurred. The ‘Source‐Pathway‐Receptor’ model is used to evaluate these risks. Traditional engineering approaches have dominated remediation technology, but biological methods have become increasingly important in recent years. ‘Bioremediation’ has been defined as ‘the elimination, attenuation or transformation of polluting or contaminating substances by the use of biological processes’. Techniques to treat soil materials include biopiling, windrowing, landfarming and bioventing, all of which depend on microbiological degradation. However, increasingly it also includes the use of vegetation to take up and/or degrade contaminants (phytoremediation) or restrict contaminant movement (phytostabilisation). Phytoremediation can be encouraged by manipulation of the rhizosphere, using selected fungal isolates in a process now defined as phytobial remediation.     

生态智慧引导下的太原市棕地修复逻辑与策略

城市生态系统是一个复杂的人工系统,城市经过快速掠夺式的发展已经造成绿地生态空间锐减,水体资源缺乏且污染严重,热岛效应突出和城市棕地面积大且污染严重等一系列生态问题。以资源枯竭型城市内大量存在的棕地为研究对象,认为城市棕地的修复需要生态智慧的引导,在建立生态智慧引导的城市棕地修复逻辑和框架的基础上,结合太原市棕地生态修复实践,建立从棕地安全性修复、棕地功能修复和棕地景观修复的综合修复框架,提出分期分类多元化再生,分类利用城市功能活化,去棕还绿抗污染植物配置棕地修复的生态智慧策略。     

典型棕地修复前后土壤重金属生态风险变化——以江西贵溪冶炼厂为例

目前,我国对于棕(褐)地周边区域生态风险的研究较少,且主要是针对风险源带来的潜在危害进行评价,没有考虑风险受体能够承受生态风险能力的大小,生态风险评价研究不全面。在棕(褐)地周边区域的生态风险评价中加入风险受体的相关研究,主要从风险源的危害分析和风险受体的生态脆弱性两方面对生态风险进行评价,使评价更加全面,另外,现有研究少有对生态风险在时间上的变化研究,考虑了生态风险时间上的变化,对贵溪冶炼厂周边两个时期的生态风险进行评价并分析其变化,利用GIS软件对评价结果进行空间表达,对研究区域存在的生态风险空间差异进行分析。结果表明:修复前苏门区、九牛岗、水泉区、串山垅等地区存在很强生态风险,沈家-林家区和长塘周家区的生态风险相对较小,处于中等风险水平,修复后研究区的生态风险大大降低,很强风险降为强风险水平,中等风险降为低风险,说明修复方式比较有效,但仍有小范围区域存在较强风险,应加强修复,研究区域中耕地的生态脆弱性最大。对于生态脆弱性较大且生态风险较大的区域应进一步进行修复治理,生态脆弱性大而生态风险较低的地区应加强监测防范,防止再次发生较强风险。     

Effect of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon on the phytoremediation of zinc by two plant species (Brassica juncea and Festuca arundinacea)

The redevelopment of contaminated land is becoming increasingly necessary under sustainable- development legislation; however, many of the contaminated sites are "orphan" sites and therefore require a low-cost remediation technology. These sites often contain a cocktail of pollutants including organics and inorganics. Phytoremediation provides a possible solution, but there is little information available on the tolerance of plant species to multiple pollutants and their ability to remediate in mixed-contaminant soils. The effect of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (pyrene) in soil upon the remediation of zinc by Brassica juncea and Festuca arundinacea was investigated under normal climatic conditions in the United Kingdom. Zinc was effectively removed from mixed-contaminant soils in the presence of both species, in comparison to a control treatment. Both species accumulated zinc in plant tissues in the presence of pyrene, but the growth of B. juncea was significantly reduced when zinc and pyrene were supplied in combination. Zinc was predominantly associated with root tissues for F. arundinacea, whereas B. juncea contained higher concentrations in shoot tissues. F. arundinacea provides a possible species to be used for the phytoremediation of brownfield sites, but further research is required to determine a range of species that may be used and their applicability to different contaminants.     

Enhanced Soil Washing for the Remediation of a Brownfield Polluted by Pyrite Ash

Soil from an abandoned/disused fertilizer plant polluted with pyrite ash containing heavy metal(loid)s (As, Cu, Pb, and Zn) was treated by means of physical and chemical washing. We first performed an exhaustive characterization of the soil-pollutant interaction, which allowed us to determine the chemical nature (complex oxyhydroxides), potential mobility and bioavailability of the pollutants (very low), as well as the grain size fractions of preferential accumulation (silt-clay fraction comprises more than 60% of the material and revealed contents well above 2.000 ppm of Cu, Zn and Pb). Soil/ash samples were subjected to a number of chemical washing trials, including leaching with 2 M HCl, 2 M NaOH and acidic process water (pH around 0). The fraction below 63 µm was mechanically separated and exposed to additional leaching tests e.g. chloridizing roasting with NaCl plus water leaching. Of all the tested procedures, the latter proved the most effective, particularly with regard to Cu and Zn recovery (recoveries up to 40% and 34%, respectively). The information gathered offers an insight into the modes and rates at which metals can be leached from pyrite ashes after chloridizing roasting as a prelude to more extensive soil washing feasibility studies focused on potential metal recovery.