Thursday, April 20, 2023

Dr. Tiago Osório Ferreira (Lattes)

Professor, University of São Paulo, Brazil

From Wastes to Functional Soils: the Potential of Technosols

2223 (McKimmon Room) Williams Hall

ABSTRACT
Industrial activities, including mining, result in significant amounts of waste production, posing a complex environmental challenge. To address this issue, new waste management methods need to be developed to efficiently destinate wastes. One possible solution is the use of Technosols, which are human-made soils created by mixing waste materials. While Technosols have the potential to support plant growth and various land uses, our understanding of the soil processes that govern their functioning and ability to provide crucial ecosystem services (such as carbon storage, nutrient cycling, and the production of food and energy) is still limited. This talk will focus on the role of weathering and pedogenesis in enhancing soil functioning in embryonic Technosols. By using different chemical, physical, mineralogical analysis as well as detailed macro and micromorphological assessments our studies evaluated the soil biogeochemical processes in these artificial soils under different scenarios. Several fast-acting soil processes (e.g., mineral transformation, pedoplasmation, rubification, and melanization) resulted in high soil quality, reaching equal or even superior quality scores to the adjacent natural soils. Technosols also showed great potential for carbon storage and stabilization through organo-mineral associations. Thus, besides revaluing waste and recovering essential ecosystem services, the construction Technosols is a promising, yet overlooked, nature-based solutions for climate change mitigation, a strategy that should be considered in future environmental policies of major industrial countries.