Ecological Recovery of Decontaminated Soil

Once polluted soil is thermically cleaned up, a dead product is the result. However, the Dutch government emphasizes the so-called principle of multifunctionality of the soil. The most vulnerable function of the soil is the ecological function. To assess the possibilities of ecological recovery of cleaned soils, a field experiment was performed in a pasture on the grounds of the institute in Bilthoven. Because soil mesofauna plays an important role in the functioning of the soil ecosystem, colonization and development of free-living nematodes and other soil mesofauna was studied in enclosures consisting of thermically cleaned soil containing a core of unpolluted grassland soil. The core was added to study possible migration of mesofauna from healthy soil to the cleaned soil. Some enclosures were fertilized to improve environmental conditions. The controls contained no core, but only unpolluted soil or cleaned soil.