Brownfield Research Articles

Overcome the limits of multi-contaminated industrial soils bioremediation: Insights from a multi-disciplinary study

Phytoremediation can be a promising and sustainable strategy to recovery Potentially Toxic Elements (PTEs) contaminated soils. However, at the field level, this tool can be limited by many issues. Herein, we combined native plant species with different cover type (mono and poly culture) in an in-field mesocosm experiment for the remediation of multi-contaminated soils from Bagnoli brownfield site (Southern Italy). We preliminary gain insights about the physical, chemical and biological features of the soils and subsequently induced a potential variation in the soil microbiome. We found that polyculture better respond both in terms of pollutant phytostabilization efficiency and from a stress tolerance perspective. Among plant species, Festuca achieved the best performance due to the overexpression of metal transporters able in both PTEs influx and sequestration from the cytoplasm. We achieved a site-specific bio-factory, which represents a strategy for the sustainable and relatively fast recovery of large contaminated areas.

BROWNFIELD SITES AND PROPERTY MARKET SENSITIVITY

The existence of Brownfield sites is one of the main challenges that Malaysia must face due to financial, administrative and policy problems. The negative environmental and social impacts of Brownfield sites jeopardise residents’ health and well-being, causing nearby areas to be less desirable for occupation and investment. These impacts result in price discounts. Hence, this research aims to establish the sensitivity of the property market towards Brownfield sites through a critical review. An overview of previous studies shows that property prices are sensitive towards Brownfield sites. This indicates that the proximity to a Brownfield site is considered when making property purchase decisions. Thus, property valuers, planners and developers should consider the Brownfield factor during property planning, development and valuation.

Sowing Seeds: Garden Festivals and the Remaking of British Cities after Deindustrialization

AbstractThis article explores one of the strangest and most spectacular urban policies in postwar Britain: national garden festivals. Initiated by Margaret Thatcher's government, the festivals were vast state-sponsored gardening shows held in deindustrializing cities to reclaim derelict land for the property market. A festival was held every other year between 1984 and 1992 in a different city, five in all. The garden festivals showcased a new kind of urbanism, one that would change the ways that British cities related to nature, to capital, and to the wider world. First, they evinced a unique type of environmental politics—an implicit critique of urban industrial landscapes that was distinct from both the emerging critique of climate change and from older ideas about conservation. Second, they emerged at a time when the attraction of private capital was becoming increasingly central to urban regeneration. The festivals were at the forefront of this turn, outsourcing their events to corporate sponsors. Finally, the festivals offered an idiosyncratic, incoherent version of globalization. They courted a global pool of tourists and capital and invited delegations from across the world to plan events while, in many instances, reinforcing a preexisting racialized social hierarchy shaped by imperial legacies.

Semi-Natural Areas on Post-Mining Brownfields as an Opportunity to Strengthen the Attractiveness of a Small Town. An Example of Radzionków in Southern Poland

The socio-economic and political changes of the end of the 20th century in Central and Eastern Europe had significant impacts on the transformation of urban spaces, especially in industrial and mining towns. The article attempts to explain the essence of these changes concerning the spatial development of—a small post-mining town in southern Poland. This article evaluates urban development policy in response to the significant land-use changes in the small post-mining city of Radzionków, with particular attention to the transformation of brownfield sites to semi-natural areas of regional importance. This issue is interesting for two reasons. First, this small city, located in a large European agglomeration, has to face competition focused on interesting regional projects. Second, there is a desire for reindustrialization as a remedy for job losses in mining and heavy industry. The successful establishment of a large botanical garden in this city provides a case study for discussing the future of small post-industrial cities and the development of land use policy regarding valuable natural areas located in post-industrial and post-mining areas. This study also indicates the vital role of the creative management factor.

“Britain's rainforests”: engaging the public with brownfield sites for conservation in the U.K.

This small-scale study aims to understand what different environmental organisations are doing to engage people with brownfield sites in the U.K. Interviews with staff members from different environmental organisations found a wide range of initiatives to be in practice, including collaboration with other organisations and local schools and involving volunteer groups with maintenance of the sites. Working with volunteers and partner organisations and the management of sites were often identified as essential contributors to the success of projects. Interesting themes which arose, including the lack of demographic data and issues engaging with developers, could act as springboards for further studies.

Techno-commercial Assessment of Concurrent Municipal Brown Field Reclamation Procedures: A Pivotal Case study of Jawahar Nagar Dump Site

Techno-commercial Assessment of Concurrent Municipal Brown Field Reclamation Procedures: A Pivotal Case study of Jawahar Nagar Dump Site

Integrated Approach of Phytostabilization for Urban Ecosystem Soils Contaminated with Lead

The article discusses the creation of a methodological approach and the specific technologies based on it in terms of the phytostabilization of urban soils contaminated with heavy metals, taking into account the peculiarities of urban ecosystems functioning in order to ensure the environmental safety of industrial wastelands. Based on the analysis of existing soil restoration methods, a mechanism for creating an integrated phytostabilization technology was developed by involving the components differing in action, aimed at reducing the migration ability of heavy metals in soil and their translocation into plants. It was suggested to increase the phytoremediation potential of phytostabilizers through the stimulation of internal defence mechanisms of plants, and through additional application of an ameliorant to bind heavy metal cations in soil, as well as through the use of microbiological preparation in order to restore soil protective functions. The practicability of phytostabilization using alfalfa (Medicago sativa) plants combined with detoxification with an aqueous solution of potassium carbonate and the BTU-r multipurpose biocomplex microbiological preparation was experimentally confirmed by means of an example of lead contamination of urban ecosystem soils in the city of Dnipro. It was concluded that their combination provides the lowest Pb2+ removal from the soil by alfalfa (Medicago sativa) plants and a significant reduction in the availability of the metal compounds in soil.

Ecological Vegetation Restoration and Regeneration Technology of Abandoned Land for Remedying the Heavy Metals Polluted Soil

Urban industrial wasteland may have been affected by the pollution of toxic and harmful substances produced by the original production activities, and the original ecosystem has been severely damaged. Especially in abandoned mines, the soil is heavily polluted by heavy metals and ecological restoration is extremely difficult. Chinese urban industrial wasteland has the characteristics of a huge number and diverse types of damage to the ecological environment. The elements of landscape design should be scientifically laid out from the three aspects of visual communication, history and humanities, and landscape structure. At the same time, attention should be paid to the external expression and internal culture of the landscape. Connotation, restoration and regeneration of landscape structures, topography, vegetation, and water bodies to create a new urban landscape space that combines ecological protection, landscape appreciation, educational science, and urban memory. For this reason, the thesis expounds the vegetation reconstruction in the ecological restoration of various industrial wastelands, and mainly analyzes the three links of soil substrate improvement, plant species selection and plant planting technology.

Application of experience economy and recommendation algorithm in tourism reuse of industrial wasteland

Abstract Industrial tourism is an important way for reuse of industrial wasteland. However, in China, reuse of industrial wasteland remain is in the exploratory practice stage, with problems such as lack of systematic planning, homogeneous strategies and inaccurate positioning of target customers. In this paper, we propose a method to reuse industrial wasteland by the combination of experience economy and recommendation algorithm. The industrial tourism product development direction is defined in the planning and design stage. The most relevant tourist-related features are extracted by establishing user profiles and experience economy-based questionnaires. The user-profile-based recommendation system generates a list of recommended tourist attractions. Finally, the recommendation-user-tag-project (R-UTP) algorithm is proposed and experimentally compared with UserkNN and ItemkNN algorithms. The R-UPT algorithm exhibits higher accuracy and has obvious advantages on recall ratio and novelty.

Study on treatment technology of industrial and mining wasteland in Shenmu City

In order to implement the basic state policy of cherishing and rationally using land and strictly protecting cultivated land, effectively break the bottleneck of strategic resource development and urban development, optimize the land use structure, raise the level of economical and intensive land use, promote the balance between urban and rural areas and the sustainable economic and social development, and realize the overall development and protection of cultivated land. In the pilot project of reclamation and utilization of historical abandoned industrial and mining lands in Shenmu City, management requirements such as total control of resource utilization, two-way regulation of supply and demand and difference are implemented to standardize the reclamation and utilization behavior of abandoned industrial and mining lands. The waste residue covered by the mining area shall be stripped and cleared, the buildings and structures in the mining area shall be dismantled, and all the waste residue and construction waste shall be transported to the designated accumulation point. Then, as needed, it will be cleared into farmland, forests, grasslands and rivers. Results: The reclamation area of the project covers 42 plots, with a total area of 2146.4 mu. The construction scale of the project is 124.8122hm2. Through the reclamation of abandoned industrial and mining land, 22.1038hm2 of new cultivated land was added in the project area, with a rate of 17.71%. The new grassland area was 32.2119hm2. After reclamation, the land utilization rate of the project increased significantly, reaching 93.38%. It promotes the balance of dynamic indexes of cultivated land in Shenmu City, maintains the dynamic balance of total cultivated land in Shaanxi Province, and improves the production and living conditions of local farmers. The project has great ecological benefit, obvious social benefit and certain economic benefit. The unification of social benefit, economic benefit and ecological benefit is realized, which accords with the goal of industrial waste land reclamation.

Phytoremediation Potential of Native Herbaceous Plant Species Growing on a Paradigmatic Brownfield Site

Phytomanagement techniques using native species allow the recovery of contaminated soils at low cost and circumvent the ecological risks associated with the use of non-native species. In this context, a paradigmatic brownfield megasite highly contaminated by As and Pb was sampled in order to analyze soil–plant interactions and identify plant species with phytoremediation potential. A survey was first carried out in a 20-ha area to obtain an inventory of species growing spontaneously throughout the site. We then performed another survey in the most polluted sub-area (1 ha) within the site. Pseudototal concentrations of contaminants in the soil, aerial parts of the plants, and roots were measured by ICP-MS. A detailed habitat classification was done, and a specific index of coverage was applied by means of a 1-year quadrat study in various sampling stations. Results converged in the selection of six herbaceous species (Dysphania botrys, Lotus corniculatus, Lotus hispidus, Plantago lanceolata, Trifolium repens, Medicago lupulina). All of these plants are fast-growing, thereby making them suitable for use in phytostabilization strategies. Furthermore, they are all easy to grow and propagate and are generally self-sustaining. All six plants showed accumulation factors below 1, thus revealing them as pseudomethallophytes and excluders. However, L. hispidus and M. lupulina showed translocation capacity and are considered worthy of further study.

Mycorrhizal Association in Industrial Wastelands in Kota, Rajasthan, India

Mycorrhizal symbiosis occurs between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and most of the vascular plants and is a highly evolved mutually beneficial relationship occurring within the rhizosphere of the vascular plants. The host plants are directly conferred benefits to the growth and development due to this symbiotic association. Their function ranges from stress alleviation to bioremediation in polluted soils besides their importance in the restoration of degraded wastelands. In this investigation colonization percentage and spore density of VAM fungi were studied in industrial waste dump sites and soil having natural vegetation. Industrial waste dump sites are characteristically dominated by Glomus. Mycorrhizal association and spore formation potential of AMF was significantly lowered in soil disturbed due to industrial waste dumping.

Techno-Commercial Assessment of Concurrent Municipal Brown Field Reclamation Procedures: A Pivotal Case Study of Jawahar Nagar Dump Site

The quantity of municipal solid waste (MSW) generation is escalating at an alarming rate with every passing year alongside the modernization of our economy. Unfortunately, the majority of this waste remains uncollected or ends up in open dumping and followed by uncontrolled burning. Citing the deep-rooted consequences, open dumping should be abandoned, and scientific interventions should be aggressively exercised to reclaim the municipal brownfields. The present research undertook the judicial task of assessing the comparative feasibility of biomining and scientific capping as a technology selection for reclamation of about a decade-old 120 million tons of waste chunk laying at Jawahar Nagar dump yard. Primary dump samples were collected from various locations, considering depth as a variable. At the same time, leachate and groundwater samples were collected from Malkaram lake and preinstalled borewells receptively. Additionally, the ambient air quality and noise level also been ascertained within the buffer zone. The blended representative solid sample was segregated using a 70 mm mesh trommel into organic and inorganic fractions. The organic fraction was composted using a lab-scale aerobic static pile composting (ASPC) while the trommel reject was processed as refuse-derived fuel (RDF). Evidently, the compost lagged quality and depicted nutrient deficiency. In contrast, the burning of RDF produced siloxane gas significantly due to elevated silicon levels in the primary waste. Furthermore, due to the prolonged leaching tenure and seasonal dilution, the concentration of legacy leachate was relatively weaker. Borewell samples collected from a depth of 20 feet also portrayed minor contamination up to 500 meters horizontal radius. The issue of leachability can solely be resolved with the capping of the existing dump, and the end product quality derived from the biomining process is highly questionable. Thus, handling such large quantity capping is a befitting option over biomining for Jawahar Nagar dumpsite.

Geothermal heating: Is it a boon or a bane for bioremediation?

There has been a worldwide interest in renewable energy technologies, as a means of decreasing reliance on fossil fuels, minimizing climate change effects, and reducing greenhouse emissions. One such technology is geothermal heating where the constant subsurface temperature is used to cool or heat building interiors via heat pumps. In Canada, the use of geothermal heating has become a popular option for heating and cooling buildings, and it is anticipated that, in the near term, most large buildings will include geothermal heating as part of their climate control strategy. However, little is known about the environmental impacts of geothermal heating on the subsurface environment. The present review will examine the effect of geothermal heating on groundwater flow and remediation efforts, whereby the heat generated by geothermal systems may help with urban pollution. "Geothermal Remediation" could leverage the subsurface heating resulting from geothermal systems to accelerate biodegradation of certain petroleum-based pollutants at brown-field sites, while providing building(s) with sustainable heating and cooling. This idea coincides with the rising momentum towards sustainable and green remediation in Europe and the United States. To ensure that Geothermal Remediation is achievable, the effect of heat on bioremediation needs to be examined. This review provides an insight into what we know about heat effects on bioremediation activities and subsurface transport.

Geometric Accuracy of 3D Reality Mesh Utilization for BIM-Based Earthwork Quantity Estimation Workflows

Current surveying techniques are typically applied to survey the as-is condition of buildings, brownfield sites and infrastructure prior to design. However, within the past decade, these techniques evolved significantly, and their applications can be enhanced by adopting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for data acquisition, up-to-date software for creating 3D reality mesh, which in turn opens new possibilities for much more efficient construction site surveying and constant updating and process management. In this study the workflows of three UAV-based photogrammetry techniques: Real Time Kinematic (RTK), Post-Processing Kinematic (PPK) and Global Positioning System (GPS) based on control points were analyzed, described, and compared to conventional surveying method with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver. Tests were performed under realistic conditions in 36 ha quarry in Lithuania. The results of the relationship between ground sample distance (GSD) and the comparison of volume measurements under each technique, including conventional method were analyzed. The deviation of data collected on field vs. generated in reality mesh, including ground control points (GCPs) and check points (CHPs) with different configurations, was investigated. The research provides observations on each workflow in the terms of efficiency and reliability for earthwork quantity estimations and explains processing schemes with advanced commercial software tools.

Performance of a gas-lifted oil production well at steady state

Although gas-lift is an established technology for improving the performances of oil production wells, the simplicity, robustness and accuracy of gas-lift models remain to be fully resolved. As an improvement on the traditional practice, this paper proposes a new approach for modelling the performance of gas-lifted wells at steady-state conditions. The conceptual framework splits the wellbore into two segments. The segments are of unique characteristics, yet they are hydraulically connected. While one segment is controlled primarily by the upstream reservoir-sandface conditions, the dynamics of the second segment are dominated by the lift-gas. This work results in a new four-phase model and an accompanying workflow for analysing the steady-state performance of a gas-lifted well. Using examples from fields operating under diverse conditions in the Niger Delta and North Sea, the new model is validated against a commercial wellbore performance simulator and actual field results. The new model yields average absolute deviation (AAD) of 2.7 and 5.4% against the commercial simulator and field results, respectively. Notwithstanding its relative simplicity, the range of AAD recorded for the new model and workflow attests to its robustness and applicability in practice. In addition to its simple mathematical form, a competitive feature of the proposed model relative to the commercial simulator and most other models is that it accounts for the four phases (gas, oil, water and solid particulates) typically encountered in mature oil production wells and brown fields.

Current Research and Applications of Meta-omics Stratagems in Bioremediation: A Bird’s-Eye View

Microorganisms are ubiquitous in nature. They are found across diverse biosphere and greatly vary among them. Several beneficial microbes engaging in degradation and their services to the ecosystem have not been fully explored. This tangled module could be resolved by Meta 'omics' approach and analysing their molecular interaction with the environment. In our day-to-day life, human beings are exposed to various xenobiotics in the form of drugs/pharmaceuticals, pesticides, artificially flavoured food and beverages. Newer diseases are also emerging due to environmental pollutants. Bioremediation offers an effective way to resilient our fragile planet. Next-generation sequencing became an ultimate technique to unravel the significance of the microbiome in remediating polluted lands and sludges. Integrating the meta omics data would open new perspectives in the clean-up of toxic contaminants from our environment. Through this review, we attempted to explore the potential of meta-omics approaches in deciphering the eavesdropping of complex microbes. This review provides novel insights into the Meta-omics techniques that aid in the field of bioremediation.

A graph based Monte Carlo simulation supporting a digital twin for the curatorial management of excavation and demolition material flows

The construction industry implies significant resource demands in two contexts: The supply of primary materials, as well as the conditioning and/or disposing of the materials resulting from excavation and demolition processes. Primary materials are limited and resource intensive in procurement, as well as in distribution. Landfill on the other hand requires brownfield sites and implies the risk of inert contamination of the soil. Manufacturing, re-use and recycling of these materials are thus an important step towards a circular economy and government agencies are interested in steering these material flows. From an economic point of view, these systems can be very volatile: Prices, availabilities and process capacities are fluctuating, while the locations of the construction sites change on a monthly basis. This paper presents a new approach using a digital twin of such a system to identify effective steering inputs and assist government agencies to understand the system and predict the influence of any potential measures. Based on a reduced graph representing the transportation network of the region, statistical information about the price structure of materials and services in the region as well as the decisions of different players within the systems are modelled. Using the Monte Carlo method, different material flows are quantified based on a set of statistical location parameters. The application of this model in the identification of steering inputs, as well as in the evaluation of potential scenarios is successfully demonstrated on two practical examples.

Brownfields over the years: from definition to sustainable reuse

Urban development is often confronted with a lack of available space. Brownfield sites offer great potential for sustainable urban planning because of their often-central location and the benefits associated with their redevelopment. Although the interest in brownfield regeneration has led to a lot of research on this topic, there is not yet a comprehensive review of brownfield research. In this review, we analyze the research on brownfields and provide a picture of the published case studies. We focus primarily on brownfields research in the United States, Europe, and People’s Republic of China. This exploratory research is based on an analysis of the published scientific literature available in the Web of Science database. Initially used in North America, the term “brownfield” quickly became popular in the rest of the world, particularly in Europe. However, with the exception of the United States, there is no specific legislation for these sites; their protection is often based indirectly on directives or laws related to soil pollution, biodiversity, or the environment. The perception of the potential use of brownfield sites varies considerably from one part of the world to another, and international collaborations among researchers from different parts of the world remain limited. Most of the described reuses of brownfield sites are forms of soft reuse (53%), and the type of reuse of a site depends more on the surrounding urbanization levels and the specific region than on the past use of a brownfield site. Despite the continued interest in the rehabilitation of these sites, especially due to the increasing demand for nature in the city following the COVID-19 crisis, many questions regarding the future of brownfield sites remain unanswered. The factors influencing their successful redevelopment are unclear, and further research is urgently needed to ensure a truly sustainable re-use of these sites.

Production, purification and characterization of biosurfactant isolated from Bacillus oceanisediminis H2

Abstract The strain Bacillus oceanisediminis H2, which was isolated from tannery processing industrial wastelands, grown on biosurfactant production media supplemented with glucose as carbon source and urea as nitrogen source was successful in the production of a crude biosurfactant. The crude biosurfactant was purified using silica-gel column chromatography and thin layer chromatography (TLC), which was then lyophilized for further analysis. TLC of both the crude and purified biosurfactant showed similar Rf values of 0.678 (of one of the spots) and 0.614 respectively. The solid purified product was then subjected to FTIR and LC-MS analysis which confirmed that the purified biosurfactant is surfactin by nature. The crude biosurfactant produced has the ability to reduce surface tension to 46.909 mN/m from 72 mN/m as that of water.