How Bioremediation Can Heal the Earth and Save Our Soil
40% of Earth's soil is degraded, threatening food and water security. Soil contamination is a major problem, but treatable with bioremediation (using microbes to clean). Different methods work for various contaminants.
A contaminated soil can be bioremediated and recovered almost 100 percent, as long as the best cleaning and sanitation method is used according to its characteristics, said the researcher at the Engineering Institute (II) of the National University, Rosario Iturbe Argüelles.
During the World Environment Day event at IIUNAM 2024, she explained that each soil is unique, so it is necessary to study the appropriate type of remediation.
Meanwhile, the director of that entity, Rosa María Ramírez Zamora, highlighted that currently up to 40 percent of the Earth's surface is considered degraded, although a soil in good health can provide almost 95 percent of food, work and means of survival in the face of droughts, floods and forest fires, so their deterioration puts us at high risk of food insecurity, poverty, lack of water and floods.
World Environment Day reminds us that we are responsible for safeguarding the health of our common home. This year the focal theme is land restoration, desertification and drought resilience, she emphasized.
When offering the talk “The importance of remediation of contaminated soils”, Iturbe Argüelles recalled that 35 percent of soil contaminants in the world are heavy metals, 11 percent polyaromatics, 24 percent mineral oils and the rest derived from petroleum. .
Additionally, the researcher and specialist in soil and aquifer sanitation specified: it is always necessary to remember how long it takes to degrade, for example, batteries do so in up to a thousand years, glass in 4 thousand, plastics from 100 to a thousand, while the paper can take a year.
To clean up the soil, there are multiple techniques such as bioremediation that takes advantage of microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi, to degrade, transform and remove contaminants into harmless products; There are also the physicochemical and thermal processes to volatilize or melt them, added Iturbe Argüelles, also a doctor in engineering from UNAM.
In turn, the person in charge of the office of the General Directorate of the National Commission for Arid Zones, Héctor Manuel Arias Rojo, spoke to academics and researchers gathered in the Emilio Rosenblueth Seminar Hall of the II:
Practically 50 percent of the arid, semi-arid and desertifying surfaces comprise scrublands and grasslands, where the predominant agricultural activity is livestock and the management of wild flora and fauna.
The graduate of the UNAM Faculty of Chemistry explained that the problem is that in semi-arid areas the main use of land is livestock, which is why the Commission promotes the construction of more than 12 thousand small hydraulic works for human consumption purposes. , watering holes and for multiple uses.
In addition, among other actions, an estimated area of 100 thousand hectares was covered with native vegetation with erosion control practices and rain stimulation projects were supported in an average annual area of 10 million hectares for of 500 thousand ranchers and managers of wild flora and fauna.
Applying fertilizers to land in an arid area increases osmotic concerns, because too many salts do not release water, so the plant will die. The big issue in these municipalities is access to the vital liquid, most of the territories have sandy soils, so you need a good moisture management strategy, Arias Rojo stressed.
