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Mitigation of sodium risk in a sandy agricultural soil by the use of natural zeolites

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Abstract

Na+ contamination of irrigation waters represents a global environmental issue for soil structure and plant production. Notwithstanding several techniques for the reduction of Na+ have been proposed in recent years, they generally exhibit disadvantages, including low recyclability and relatively high operational/maintenance costs. In this paper, we propose a natural and eco-friendly solution for the reduction of Na+ risk in coastal agricultural sandy soil (SS), vulnerable to salinity stress. A series of column leaching experiments have been conducted to assess the influence of Italian zeolite-rich tuff (natural zeolites, NZ) addition to soil (NZSS) on Na+ removal, SAR, and CROSS index, under three different salinity scenario. Result showed that the Na+ removal efficiency varied between 46.4 and 54.3% in soil amended with NZ, and analogously SAR index was significantly reduced from 7 to up 13 points. SAR and CROSS indexes resulted better correlated in SS rather than NZSS due to the influence of K+ released by NZ. In conclusion, soil amendment with NZ represents a natural and eco-friendly solution for increasing sandy soil resilience to Na+ risk.

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Abbreviations

BD:

Bulk density

BW:

Brackish water

BWa:

Brackish water having EC = 5 mS cm−1

BWb:

Brackish water having EC = 10 mS cm−1

BWc:

Brackish water having EC = 18 mS cm−1

CEC:

Cation exchange capacity

Ce :

Ions concentration at equilibrium

C0 :

Ions concentration in the filling solution

CROSS:

Cations ratio of soil structural stability

EC:

Electrical conductivity

NZ:

Natural zeolitite

NZSS:

Sandy soil + 10 wt% of natural zeolitite

OM:

Organic matter

PV:

Pore volume

Qe :

Amount of ions retained/released by the exchanger solid phase

RE %:

Removal efficiency (%)

SAR:

Sodium adsorption ratio

SS:

Sandy soil

TDS:

Total dissolved salts

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to Renzo Tassinari for laboratory analysis.

Funding

This study has been funded by Bando 2012 per progetti di ricerca finanziati con il contributo della Camera di Commercio, Industria, Artigianato e Agricoltura” grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Earth Science, University of Ferrara, Via Saragat 1, 44122, Ferrara, Italy

    Giacomo Ferretti, Barbara Faccini & Massimo Coltorti

  2. Department of Chemical and Geological Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, via Giuseppe Campi 103, 41125, Modena, Italy

    Dario Di Giuseppe

Authors
  1. Giacomo Ferretti
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  2. Dario Di Giuseppe
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  3. Barbara Faccini
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  4. Massimo Coltorti
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Barbara Faccini.

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Ferretti, G., Di Giuseppe, D., Faccini, B. et al. Mitigation of sodium risk in a sandy agricultural soil by the use of natural zeolites. Environ Monit Assess 190, 646 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-018-7027-2

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