Journal of Marine Science: Research & Development
Open Access

Abstract

A pre-requisite to any revegetation plan as well as restoration of degraded land is the knowledge of physico-chemical characterization, which is crucial for prediction of ecological succession for mine overburden include soil texture, hydrological regimes, pH, organic carbon, nitrogen, extractable phosphorous. Effects of mining activities are markedly adverse because many beneficial soil characteristics may require a long span of time to develop through pedogenic processes in order to reach native forest condition, which evaluates the degree of functional microbial processes for ecosystem recovery and used as an index of the progress of soil genesis in mine spoils. Mine spoil samples collected from six different age series overburdens showed progressive increase in clay (%) (r = 0.982, p<0.001), water holding capacity and organic carbon, which indicates the development of soil structural stability, aggregation with the increase in age of overburden. The pH of spoil samples was noted to be in acidic range (6.11-6.87). Approximately, 93.7 % variability in clay (%) can be explained due to the variation in organic carbon content. The carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous content showed an improvement of 2 mgC/g spoil, 161 μgN/g spoil and 8 μgP/g spoil respectively over a period of 10 years. Thus, the net annual accumulation rate for carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous on hactre basis amounted to 255 kgC/ha/yr, 20 kgN/ha/yr and 1 kgP/ha/yr respectively. Principal component analysis was performed to discriminate the different age-series coal mine overburden spoil based upon on the physico-chemical properties. The mine spoil to attain the soil features of nearby native forest soil of the study site through the process of reclamation shall take approximately 28 years.

Biography

Amiya Ku. Patel completed M.Sc (Zoology) from P.G. Department of Zoology, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha in 1999. After that he has pursued M.Phil (Life Sciences) in School of Life Sciences, Sambalpur University, Odisha in 2001. Thereafter, he has completed M. Tech. (Biotechnology) from Anna University, Chennai in 2003. Then registered for Ph.D. (Life Sciences) under Sambalpur University and awarded Doctor in Philosophy (Life Sciences) in 2009. He is serving as a reader in School of Life Sciences, Sambalpur University in 2010 and still continuing in the same post.