Pas d'enregistrements
Sirine Bouguerra
2022
2Improve: Boost the potential of resistant indigenous plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria to improve crop productivity and soil quality in Estarreja and Baixo Vouga Lagunar affected agroecosystems.
AGRICULTURAL SOILS
METAL(LOIDS)
SALINIZATION
MAIZE
BIOINOCULANTS
PRODUCTIVITY
The threatens to agriculture soils from the Estarreja and Baixo Vouga Lagunar (BVL) regions include the combination of several anthropogenic and environmental factors, such as industrial pollution, intensive farming practices, overuse of fertilizers, the use of contaminated groundwater for irrigation, and salinization due to surface saltwater intrusion. For instance, these factors contributed to land degradation and therefore to crop productivity and safety decreasing. Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the most important crops in these regions and boosting maize production in affected soils can have a significant socio-economic impact. Thus, the need of sustainable and eco-friendly solutions to improve productivity is one of the major challenges of agriculture activity in these regions. Estarreja and BVL may also be living labs, providing experience to other sites, where these approaches may be transferred. Several studies have demonstrated that inoculation with indigenous rhizobacteria can enhance plant performance and growth. Driven by described issues and based on knowledges acquired from our previous OHM projects (e.g: SoilGenomic, 2016; NotillAgri-Estarreja, 2017; Nameless, 2017; SoilSalt, 2017; SoilRice, 2018), this proposal aims to explore the potential of a consortium of indigenous plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPB) that are resistant to metal(loids) present in those soils, as well as PGPB well adapted to high levels of salinity and re-applied them to reduce problems associated with stressful environments via ex-situ bioinoculation of new seeds (before sowing) and in-situ bioinoculation of new plantlets. Accordingly, this may contribute to minimizing impacts on crops productivity and assure more sustainable agriculture practices.
Andrés Andrés Rodríguez Seijo
2018
MATiSSe - Microplastics on AgriculTural SoilS: assessment of their impact on physical, chemical and biological soil properties
AGRICULTURAL SOILS
MICROBIAL ASSESSMENT
MICROPLASTIC
NEW CONTAMINANTS
SOIL
RISK ASSESSMENT.
This project proposes to study the impact of Microplastics in agricultural soils, though the assessment of several soil properties: physical (soil texture, soil structure and bulk density), chemical (pH, cation exchange capacity, organic matter, potentially toxic elements and compounds) and biological properties (soil enzymatic activity and/or soil organisms). Although this project could be developed in any region, Estarreja region offers an exceptional environment due to having a mixed area of agricultural and industrial activities, where MPs can act as carriers of potentially toxic elements and compounds, as reported for aquatic ecosystems. Further, insights brought by this project can be useful to support the development of soil management measures specifically targeting the restoration of the quality of soils from Estarreja.
Ruth Pereira
2017
NAMELESs - Nanomaterials for the Remediation of agriculture Metal contaminated soils surrounding the Estarreja chemical complex
AGRICULTURAL SOILS
BIOAVAILABILITY
FOOD SECURITY
INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY
NANOPARTICLES
POTENTIALLY TOXIC ELEMENTS
SOIL
RISK ASSESSMENT.
Estarreja Chemical Complex (ECC) is the second largest chemical complex in Portugal and has been classified by the Portuguese Environmental Agency as a "site of priority actions in terms of rehabilitation". Previous studies found that potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in Estarreja agricultural soils are associated with labile fractions, which results in their bioaccumulation and translocation in plant tissues of commercial interest, and a potential risk of transfer to the food web.
Since nanotechnology has been presented as a promising technique for immobilising PTEs in soils, and particularly for reducing available contents, this project aims at evaluating the ability of nanoparticles to reduce PTEs mobility and their uptake by plants. The ability of nanoparticles to reduce the mobility of PTEs will be assessed though selective chemical extractions and by ecotoxicological assays.
Thus, this project proposes to study the effectiveness of the use of nanoparticles usually employed into remediation strategies of contaminated soils to determine the changes in the mobility of potentially toxic elements assess the ecotoxicity of nanoparticles in laboratory conditions and evaluate the reduction of bioaccumulation and translocation of PTEs by plant species.