Past, present and future trends in the remediation of heavy-metal contaminated soil - Remediation techniques applied in real soil-contamination events

Abstract

Most worldwide policy frameworks, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, highlight soil as a key non-renewable natural resource which should be rigorously preserved to achieve long-term global sustainability. Although some soil is naturally enriched with heavy metals (HMs), a series of anthropogenic activities are known to contribute to their redistribution, which may entail potentially harmful environmental and/or human health effects if certain concentrations are exceeded. If this occurs, the implementation of rehabilitation strategies is highly recommended. Although there are many publications dealing with the elimination of HMs using different methodologies, most of those works have been done in laboratories and there are not many comprehensive reviews about the results obtained under field conditions. Throughout this review, we examine the different methodologies that have been used in real scenarios and, based on representative case studies, we present the evolution and outcomes of the remediation strategies applied in real soil-contamination events where legacies of past metal mining activities or mine spills have posed a serious threat for soil conservation. So far, the best efficiencies at field-scale have been reported when using combined strategies such as physical containment and assisted-phytoremediation. We have also introduced the emerging problem of the heavy metal contamination of agricultural soils and the different strategies implemented to tackle this problem. Although remediation techniques used in real scenarios have not changed much in the last decades, there are also encouraging facts for the advances in this field. Thus, a growing number of mining companies publicise in their webpages their soil remediation strategies and efforts; moreover, the number of scientific publications about innovative highly-efficient and environmental-friendly methods is also increasing. In any case, better cooperation between scientists and other soil-related stakeholders is still required to improve remediation performance.

Keywords: (bio)mining; Heavy-metal; Remediation; Soil; Spills; Sustainability.

Fig. 1

Schematic representation of the main sources of anthropogenic HM contamination; mining activities generate residues that are in many occasions accumulated in ponds. During these mining activities, in abandoned mines or because of accidents, these HM can be spread by water or air, affecting the nearby areas. Agricultural processes, such as mechanical management, and use of chemical fertilizers, animal manure, or contaminated wastewaters, are also sources of contamination. The main remedial actions that have been demonstrated their utility at large scale are indicated in the lower part of the figure.

Fig. 2

Schematic representation of the main phytoremediation strategies.