RESTORATION OF HEAVY METALS POLLUTED SOILS CASE STUDY - CAMELINA -

Soil management is a very important action for agriculture in general, and also for producing biofuel feedstock. However, part of the soil is contaminated with heavy metals, particularly in C-E Europe, due to previous heavy industry. Therefore, the restoration action is necessary, to reclaim the contaminated land for agricultural purposes. Soil contamination by heavy metals such as cadmium (Cd), copper and mercury has become a big concern particularly in metal plating plants, mining sites and surrounding areas as well as residential area and farmlands in the river downstream region neighbouring these facilities. In some cases, heavy metals in soils leach into river water and then diffuse onto farmlands with irrigation, resulting in relatively low levels of heavy metals being spread into wider areas rather than being localized in high concentrations. Therefore, a remediation process is necessary. Thus, recently, weed species, possessing high adaptability to environment, have been pointed out as a suitable plant for soil remediation. Although research on phyto-remediation using weeds has just begun and there are many issues which need to be resolved, this remediation technique is expected to become a valuable technology for the alleviation of heavy metal contaminated soils in the near future. The paper will present a remediation plan, taken Camelina sativa as an example of selected weed, and as case-studies, Rovinari and Copsa-Mica, two heavily polluted areas in Romania. The proposed plan involves 5 steps which includes heavy metals accumulation abilities of weeds, goal and approach for the restoration of metal pollution soils by use of weeds/camelina, cleean up the remediation area: control the introduced weeds before re-using the area as a farmland. The work has started in 2013 and the research is still on going, as part of ITAKA project. This paper will present preliminary results based on selected plan. The paper concludes with an invitation to our colleagues from USAMV - Faculty of Land Reclamation and Environmental Engineering to join our research for a smart agriculture management.