Verónica Asensio

• PhD. Soil Science
• Scientific Director at Edafotec

Population growth has driven an increased demand for solid construction materials, leading to higher amounts of construction and demolition waste (C&DW). Efficient strategies to manage this waste include reduction, reuse, and recycling. Technosols—soils engineered from recycled waste—can potentially help with environmental challenges. However, ther...

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a serious environmental problem associated with the mine sector when minerals that contains sulfur are exposed. The effluents discharge, in water bodies, with low pH and high metals levels, can pose a threat to the ecosystems, even after the mine exploration ceases. Hence, treatments for the AMD are necessary and can be...

Mangrove forests have been reported as sinks for metals because of the immobilization of these elements in their soils. However, climate change may alter the functioning of these ecosystems. We aimed to assess the geochemical dynamics of Mn, Cu, and Zn in the soils of a mangrove forest dead by an extreme weather event in southeastern Brazil. Soil s...

Fe biogeochemistry is associated with important ecosystem services provided by mangrove forests, including carbon sequestration and the retention of potentially toxic elements. The biogeochemical processes controlling Fe fate in mangroves are naturally affected by the soil geochemical environment, which controls Fe dynamics. However, ongoing climat...

The use of native plants for reforestation and/or remediation in areas contaminated by mining is a technique with low implantation and maintenance costs. The success of this practice depends on the plant species and geochemical processes at the soil–plant interface (e.g., rhizosphere). This study evaluated the potential of spontaneous species for m...

Fertilization is commonly used to increase growth in forest plantations, but it may also affect tree water relations and responses to drought. Here, we measured changes in biomass, transpiration, sapwood-to-leaf area ratio (As:Al) and sap flow driving force (ΔΨ) during the 6-year rotation of tropical plantations of Eucalyptus grandis under controll...

This study aimed to estimate the impact of an abandoned copper (Cu) mine on ecosystem environmental quality, using integrated ecological and biogeochemical analyses. Through a controlled experiment, the amount of Cu released by waste rocks, Cu adsorbed in soils, Cu geochemical behaviour and its leached amount were measured. Furthermore, to investig...

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of droughts in most tropical regions in the coming decades. A passive phenomenon called hydraulic redistribution (HR) allows some plant species to take up water from deep and wet soil layers and redistribute it in the upper dry layers where other plants and soil biota can benefit from it. In addi...

Due to the limited number of studies on phytoremediation using native tree species in tropical soils, the aim was to identify new phytoremediator species from tropical climate with the purpose of promoting an increase in the diversity of tropical native trees used in phytoremediation projects. Seven native tree species from Brazil were selected: Ce...

A large number of studies on the reclamation of mine soils focused on the problem caused by metals and did not explore in depth the issue of nutrients and vegetation after the application of organic materials. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of two treatments made of wastes and vegetated with Brassica juncea L. on the fertility of a...

Abandoned mines pose potential risks to the environment and human health, and the reclamation of these areas is difficult. Soils from mining areas are usually characterised by degraded structure, high concentration of potentially toxic elements and deficiencies in nutrients. A greenhouse experiment was carried out in cylinders with the mine soil fr...

The use of amendments made with organic wastes for remediating degraded and polluted soils has shown to be an effective and low-cost treatment to increase soil quality. This improvement in soil quality is reflected in fertility levels, physical and biological quality of the soil, allowing and supporting vegetal covering of previously degraded areas...

Background and aimsComparing root functioning under contrasting rainfall regimes can help assessing the capacity of plant species to cope with more intense and frequent drought predicted under climate change context. While the awareness of the need to study the whole root system is growing, most of the studies of root functioning through rhizospher...

Water is about to become increasingly limited for crop production, which jeopardizes the whole maize sector. Potassium (K) nutrition has been proposed to mitigate water deficit in plants, but field-scale studies involving grain yield components are scarce. In this study, we aimed at analyzing the effect of K nutrition on grain yield, vegetative gro...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the application of compost and biochar as soil amendments and planting of Brassica juncea L. to improve soil carbon fractions in a copper mine soil. A greenhouse experiment was carried out for 3 months amending the mine soil with increasing proportions of compost and biochar mixture (20, 40, 80 an...

Purpose Soil organic carbon (SOC) and its labile fractions are strong determinants of physical, chemical and biological properties. The objective of the present work was to evaluate the effects of organic amendments (technosol made of wastes and biochar) and Brassica juncea L. on the soil C fractions in a reclaimed mine soil. Materials and methods...

One technique applied to restore degraded or contaminated soils is to use amendments made of different types of waste materials, which in turn may contain metals such as Cu, Pb and Zn. For this reason it is important to determine the capacity of the soil to retain these materials, and to compare the sorption capacity between an amended soil and ano...

One technique applied to restore degraded or contaminated soils is to use amendments made of different types of waste materials, which in turn may contain metals such as Cu, Pb and Zn. For this reason, it is important to determine the capacity of the soil to retain these materials, and to compare the sorption capacity between an amended soil and an...

The wastes used to amend soils sometimes have high concentrations of metals such as nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn). To determine the capacity of soils to retain these metals, the sorption capacities of different mine soils with and without reclamation treatments (tree vegetation and waste amendment) for Ni, Pb and Zn in individual and competi...

Figure 1. Botanical composition as a percentage in the spoil banks as determined 1, 4 and 6 months after the application of different treatments. For each spoil bank and botanical group, mean values of stacked bars labelled with different letters differ significantly at p < 0.05.

Purpose Soil metal pollution is a widespread problem around the world and remediation of these soils is difficult. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of two different strategies on the chemical fractions of metals in a soil of a depleted copper mine: (1) amending with a mixture of a technosol made of wastes and biochar and (2...

The contamination produced by metal mining activities is a major environmental problem; for this reason, sustainable management strategies are required for remediating mine soils. The present study focused on the effect of applying organic amendments combined with vegetation in a settling pond soil of a depleted copper mine of Touro (Spain). Two di...

A greenhouse experiment was performed to evaluate the effects of organic amendments (compost and biochar) and vegetation (Brassica juncea L.) on the metal fractionation of Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn in a soil of a depleted copper mine. The influence of organic amendments alone (compost+biochar) and combined with mustard plants (B. juncea L.) was assessed. T...

The aim of this study was to physically demonstrate the associations between Ni, Pb and Zn and the different soil components. To achieve this, several soil samples were observed by field emission-scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) detector. The samples came from mine sites vegetated and/or am...

A 3-month greenhouse experiment was carried out for evaluating the effect of an amendment mixture and mustards on the chemical characteristics of a mine soil and the metal uptake by plants. A settling pond soil was amended with increasing percentages of a technosol and biochar mixture and vegetated with Brassica juncea L. Adding amendments and plan...

Mine soils at the depleted copper mine in Touro (Northwest Spain) are physicochemically degraded and polluted by chromium and copper. To increase the quality of these soils, some areas at this mine have been vegetated with eucalyptus or pines, amended with sludges, or received both treatments. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the ef...

The sorption capacity for Ni, Pb and Zn of mine tailings soil with and without reclamation treatment (tree planting and waste amendment) was evaluated using the batch adsorption technique. It is important to determine the capacity of waste-amended soils to retain Ni, Pb and Zn, as the sludges used usually have high concentrations of these metals. T...

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect of planting trees (Pinus pinaster or Eucalyptus globulus) and amending with wastes (sewage sludges and paper mill residues) on the nutrient content of mine soils and under field conditions. The studied soils were located in a settling pond and a mine tailing within a former copper mine. Th...

The soils at a depleted copper mine in Touro (Galicia, Spain) are chemically degraded. In order to determine the effect of amendments and vegetation on the chemical characteristics of a mine soil and on the plant uptake of metals, a greenhouse experiment was carried out for 3 months. A settling pond soil was amended with different percentages of a...

The short-term sequential effects of different treatments on soil fertility and revegetation of mine spoils were examined in a lignite mine in northwestern Spain. Experimental plots were established both on an old and a recent spoil after tillage, and treated with compost or nitrogen (N) phosphorus (P) potassium (K) + magnesium limestone before see...

The quality of soils found in mines is low if they do not receive any reclamation treatment. To our knowledge, there are no still equations to evaluate the quality of metal contaminated mine soils after the application of the reclamation treatments mainly in use today (planting vegetation and amending with wastes). Therefore, the purposes of the pr...

The use of wastes as soil amendments is a technique applied to reduce the available concentration of heavy metals in polluted sites (Pérez-de-Mora et al., 2005). However, the used wastes sometimes have high concentration of metals such as Cu, Pb, and Zn. Therefore, the sorption capacity of the amendments is important to understand its behavior in s...

The reclamation of degraded soils adding waste amendments can add significant concentrations of Pb. Because of this, it is important to know the sorption capacity of Pb by the soils where wastes with high concentrations of this metal are applied. To determine the sorption capacity of Pb by mine soils, before and after reclamation treatments, four d...

Mine tailing soils created from the copper extraction in Touro Mine (Northwest Spain) are very degraded both physically and chemically. Three plots in this mine tailing were amended with Technosols in different proportions in each one to know if this mixture improved the physico-chemical characteristics of the mine soil and contaminated it with hea...

Soils at a depleted copper mine in Touro (Galicia, Spain) are physically and chemically degraded and have also polluted the surrounding area. Due to these environmental problems and the large area of these mine soils, the reclamation strategies carried out at Touro have consisted of planting trees (pine or eucalyptus), amending with waste material...

Mine soils are often physically degraded, which hinders plants development. The untreated soils at the depleted copper mine in Touro (Galicia, north-west Spain) have no vegetation and are probably physically degraded. These mine soils were reclaimed both by planting trees and amending with waste (sewage sludge and paper mill residues). The purpose...

Tree vegetation (pines and eucalyptus) was planted in mine soils located in the depleted copper mine in Touro village (Northwest Spain). The growth of these trees were very poor, but those who are survived could have improved the condition of the degraded mine soils. In order to evaluate the effect produced by trees in Touro mine soils, some vegeta...

In order to study the reclamation of mine sites, the short-term effects of different amendments on soil fertility (at 1 and 6 months) and spontaneous vegetation (at 3 and 6 months) were examined in spoil banks of a lignite mine in Galicia (NW Spain). Experimental plots were established on three spoil banks deposited in 1984, 1988 and 2007, and trea...

Most of the opencast mines produce large mine tailings which can be considered as a new parent material. Soils developed on them are classified like Spolic Technosols. Mine tailings normally have characteristics not suitable for living organisms and they usually contain high heavy metal levels that can be hazardous for environment and human beings...

ABSTRACT With the aim to analyze the changes produced by the revegetation in the chemical characteristics of soils developed on the copper flotation bank extracted from a mine located in Touro (La Coruna), three areas of study were aselected. One of them has not been a revegetated and two other revegetated, with a predominant vegetation composed of...

ABSTRACT With the aim to analyze the effect of the treatment of minespoils with technosols, three areas in Touro mine were selected. One of them is an untreated minespoil and other two were treated with two technosols manufactured with two kind of mixtures of residues. T1 technosol consists in a mixture of mussels deyections and sludges and ashes c...