Contribution of bricks to urban soil properties

Archive ouverte

Nehls, Thomas | Rokia, Sarah | Mekiffer, Beate | Schwartz, Christophe | Wessolek, Gerd

Edité par CCSD ; Springer Verlag -

Bricks are regularly found in urban soils where they can strongly impact soil properties. The purpose of this study is to investigate abundance, especially in the fine earth fraction, and properties of bricks in urban soils, focusing on rooting, plant nutrition and contamination. Three different urban soils from the city of Berlin have been studied for their brick contents in the coarse and fine earth fractions by hand sorting. Light (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was employed to investigate bricks for proofs of rooting. Third, CEC, pH, EC, C-org, nutrient and contaminant storage and availability have been investigated for bricks and the fine earth fractions of the corresponding soil horizons. The fine earth fractions of the investigated soils contain 3 to 5 % of bricks, while the coarse fractions contain up to 50 %. The LM and SEM micrographs made the proof that roots enter brick pores or attach to brick surfaces. Therefore, they can use the water and nutrients stored in bricks and bypass pore system discontinuities between bricks and surrounding soil. The CEC of bricks is grain size dependent and reaches a maximum of 6 cmol(c) kg(-1) for particles smaller than 0.063 mm. This dependency is the result of the restricted diffusion into the brick pore system due to the short shaking time in the CEC analysis protocol and of the rising surface with decreasing particle size. From the nutrient storage and availability, we conclude that bricks can better supply plants with K, Mg, Ca and S than the investigated sandy bulk soil. The nutrient availability from bricks is low compared to control soils, except for Ca and S. Because of the water and nutrient storage, low contamination status and the possible rooting of bricks, they can be used for amelioration of poor sandy soils and for constructed Technosols, preferably employed in small grain sizes.

Consulter en ligne

Suggestions

Du même auteur

Soil construction with technogenic materials to recycle phosphorus for plant growth in cities.

Archive ouverte | Rokia, Sarah | CCSD

Soil construction with technogenic materials to recycle phosphorus for plant growth in cities. . International Conference of the Working Group on Soils in Urban, Industrial, Traffic, Mining and Military Areas (SUITMA) of Internati...

Letter to the editors: Phyto-P-mining-secondary urban green recycles phosphorus from soils constructed of urban wastes

Archive ouverte | Nehls, Thomas | CCSD

Cities are hotspots of consumption of matter, energy, and water and hotspots of production of wastes, which are also secondary resources. Nutrients such as phosphorus are hardly extracted and recycled from these wastes, except fro...

Indicators for the optimization of soil construction processes for green landscaping.

Archive ouverte | Rokia, Sarah | CCSD

Indicators for the optimization of soil construction processes for green landscaping. . SUITMA 7. International Conference on Soils of Urban, Industrial, Traffic, Mining and Military Areas

Chargement des enrichissements...