Environmental recovery of polluted and degraded areas using sustainable techniques leads to an increase in environmental resilience to climate change and in human wellbeing. This is essential for improving acceptance by local populations and thus ensure a greater effectiveness of the remediation process. Phytoremediation is a solution with low environmental impact for the recovery of sites contaminated by heavy metals and hydrocarbons using tree, shrub and herbaceous species associated with soil microorganisms and soil ammendants. For an effective recovery of polluted soil, it is pivotal to study the processes regulating the interaction between soil, plants and microorganisms with biometric and ecophisiological measurements. In fact, phytotechnologies are based on the biological, chemical and physical processes that allow absorption, sequestration, biodegradation and metabolism of contaminants by plants and soil microorganisms. For in situ remediation, plants exploit different mechanisms: heavy metals phytoextraction from the soil and accumulation in the plant tissues; phytorizodegradation of organic contaminants through synergistic actions between plants and microorganisms of the rhizosphere; pollutants phytostabilization in the roots; contaminants phytovolatilisation through absorption and possible chemical modification with subsequent release into the atmosphere through leaf transpiration.
Aims of the project are:
- application of green technologies for efficient reduction and remediation of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) pollution in lands previously occupied by refineries;
- enhancement of landscape quality, considering the socio-ecological values of green areas for the improvement of people life quality in the short and medium term