M. Moeinfar; M.H. Rasouli Sadaghiani; M. Barin; F. Asadzadeh
Abstract
Introduction: Dust is one of the most important destructive phenomena in the world, that annually causing damage to human health and the environment. This issue ranks after two major challenges of climate change and water scarcity as the third most important challenge facing the world in the ...
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Introduction: Dust is one of the most important destructive phenomena in the world, that annually causing damage to human health and the environment. This issue ranks after two major challenges of climate change and water scarcity as the third most important challenge facing the world in the 21st century that is considered. Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) is a relatively green and sustainable soil improvement technique. It utilizes biochemical process that exists naturally in soil to improve engineering properties of soils. The calcite precipitation process is uplifted by the mean of injecting higher concentration of urease positive bacteria and reagents into the soil. In this process, the enzyme present in the bacteria hydrolyzes the urea in the environment and through reacting with the calcium ion, leads in the deposition of calcium carbonate. The main objective of this study is isolation native ureolytic bacteria from different soil of around Urmia Lake and then, the evaluation their efficiency in the MICP for stabilization of sandy soils and reduce windy erosion.
Materials and Methods: In order to isolate ureolytic bacteria, 25 soil samples were taken from different land use in West Azarbaijan province, Iran. To increase the number of ureolytic bacteria in soil samples were used from the enrichment solution and then ureolytic bacteria were isolated and purified. These isolates were subjected to various biochemical tests, as well as the growth curve and urease activity were determined. In order to investigate the potential for soil improvement, a factorial experiment was conducted based on a completely randomized design with two factors including microbial treatment in eight levels (including five isolated bacteria (U3, U8, U16, U35 and U40) and Bacillus pasteurii (as control Positive), non-bacterial and non-cementation (as control negative) and non-microbial but with cementation solution treatments) and another factor including different concentrations of calcium chloride solution with urea at three levels (0.1, 0.5 and 1 molar), in three replications. After injection of cementation solution and bacterial solution to soil, penetration resistance and windy erosion rates in sandy soil were assessed
Results and Discussion: In study, overall 45 isolates of the bacteria were isolated and purified. Among of 44 isolates, five bacterial isolates (U3, U8, U16, U35 and U40) had the highest urease activity. The growth curve of bacterial isolates showed that the highest urease activity and microbial population were in the time period of 13 to 16 hours after microbial culture, which it is represents the best time use bacterial solution in the MICP process. According to the results of soil improvement tests, the amount of soil erosion in the MICP treatment at a wind speed of 25 m/s was zero and the rate of penetration resistance was averaged over 13 MPa, which has a very impressive impact on MICP in controlling wind erosion, especially at high speeds of wind. The results showed that U3 and U16 isolates had the highest amount of urea hydrolysis and also U16 and U3 had the lowest and the highest tolerance to salinity, respectively. The results of the wind tunnel showed that the wind erosion threshold in negative control samples (non-bacterial and non-cementation) were 9.4 m/s and for MICP samples (including five isolated bacteria and Bacillus pasteurii ) were much higher than the wind tunnel speed in the wind tunnel machine in Urmia university (25 m/s). The maximum penetration resistance (13.5 MPa) was obtained in the sample treated with U3 isolate and 1 molar calcium chloride, but negative control treatments (non-bacterial and non-cementation) as well non-microbial but with cementation solution treatments were 0 and 97.0 MPa, respectively.
Conclusion: The amount of soil wind erosion was zero in MICP treatment with the wind tunnel speed 25 m/s that indicates very important effects MICP to control wind erosion of sandy soils to compare control treatments (non-bacterial and non-cementation and non-microbial but with cementation solution) in high wind speeds. The application of MICP treatment in the soil, in addition to increasing its wind erosion resistance, also increased penetration resistance in the soil. Increasing the penetration resistance of MICP treatments (including five isolated and Bacillus pasteurii) can be due to the activity of bacterial isolates, chemical interactions, and the formation of calcium carbonate precipitation into soil cavities, which causes to form a hard layer in soil. Also, obtained resistance by using isolated bacteria indicates that there are many unknown microorganisms that can carry out MICP better than Bacillus pasteurii and probably they will be better compatible and establish because they are native.
F. Arzaghi; A. Farrokhian Firouzi; N. Enayatizamir; B. Khalilimoghaddam
Abstract
Introduction: Wind erosion is the most important agent of environmental degradation, poverty of soil, air pollution and the dust spread. Wind erosion is causing a lot of damage to crops, buildings, facilities and vehicles. The first step of the wind erosion control is the stabilization of soil particles. ...
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Introduction: Wind erosion is the most important agent of environmental degradation, poverty of soil, air pollution and the dust spread. Wind erosion is causing a lot of damage to crops, buildings, facilities and vehicles. The first step of the wind erosion control is the stabilization of soil particles. Soil stabilizing methods to control wind erosion can be classified into mechanical, biological and chemical stabilization. Mechanical soil stabilization type is relatively time-consuming and costly. Biological stabilization is a traditional way that exhibits a long-term validity but sandy soil cannot provide essential water and nutrition elements needed by plant. Recently, chemical stabilization such as high-molecular-weight anionic polyacrylamide (PAM) has attracted the attention of researchers because of its advantages in easy and quick construction, and the improvement of the growing conditions for plant. However PAM has been mainly used to control water erosion and there is still little available information regarding the effectiveness of PAM on preventing soil loss by wind erosion. The main objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using PAM in wind erosion controlling. Also, effects of PAM on some soil physical and chemical properties and their temporal variability were evaluated.
Materials and Methods: In this study polyacrylamide polymer was used as a restoration of soil and soil structure stabilizer on sandy soil of Azadegan Plain (Khuzestan province, Iran). Consequently, an experiment was conducted as factorial based on completely randomized design with three replicates. The experimental treatments were consist polyacrylamide polymer (PAM) at three levels (0, 0.5, and 1 %), soil moisture at two levels (80% FC and dry) and time duration at three levels (15, 30 and 45 days). The emulsion of PAM was sprayed homogeneously on the soil surface. After passing each time treatment, penetration resistance and some physical and chemical properties of soil was measured. Finally after doing all measurements, the treatment with maximum penetration resistance were selected and the sample was prepared for wind tunnel testing. The wind erosion experiments were conducted in a wind tunnel. Soil samples were located in removable trays. The width and length of the trays was 30 and 100 cm, respectively. The wind erosion experiments were performed under wind velocity of 12 m s−1 according to the actual situation of study area.
Results and Discussion: The results indicated that in comparison to control, soil acidity decreased at both levels of the polymer with increasing time. The decreasing of soil acidity in wet treatments was more than dry treatment. The lowest amount of pH was obtained in the 30-day wet treatment at 1% polymer level. The results show from the 30th day onwards, soil pH increased, which is probably due to the polymer degradation. With passing time, soil electrical conductivity (EC) at both levels of the polymer (0.5 and 1%) increased and decreased respectively after 30 days. These observations are probably because after 30 days the properties of polymer-hydrophilic units gradually decrease and water adsorption was reduced or that soil soluble salts were adsorbed by polymer particles. The results also showed with passing time, Mean Weight-Diameter of Soil Aggregates (MWD) increased and then after 30 days declined. The largest MWD was observed in 30 days treatment at 1% polymer level. After thirty days, its effect has probably diminished due to polymer degradation. Furthermore, the results showed no significant difference of bulk density among treated soil with different level of polymer, but application of polymer caused to decrease bulk density comparison to control. Polymer application increased soil penetration resistance significantly. Using 1% of polymer increased it to 6 kg/m2. The results also indicated that the soil resistance at first increased with time and then decreased significantly. The amount of soil penetration resistance at 45-day was less than 15-day. The results of wind tunnel with a maximum 12 m/s wind velocity showed that application of the polymer reduced the erosion of sands samples to zero.
Conclusion: The research results indicated that PAM application increased soil penetration resistance and MWD. The polymer could improve the structure of soil aggregates and increase the amount of dry-stable aggregates and therefore decrease soil bulk density. Spraying PAM solution on the surface of soil significantly decreased the wind erosion amounts. Therefore, this inexpensive and easily usable polymer can be considered as a soil stabilizer to control wind erosion in arid and semiarid areas.
