A new technology to restore soil fertility: reconstitution

Soil degradation is characterized by the reduction of soil thickness and fertility. Reconstitution technique was used to reclaim the degraded soil covering a closed landfill and to restore the fertility of farm soils in Northern Italy (Piacenza province, Emilia-Romagna region). Reconstitution applied chemical and mechanical actions to degraded soils and/or alluvial sediments mixed with waste from different productive processes. The aim of this study was to describe how reconstitution changed the physicochemical properties of the original soils used in the mixture. The results show that reconstitution produced soils with improved physical properties; on average, in reconstituted soils bulk density was 45% and particle density was 10% lower than original soils. The same was observed for the chemical properties; on average, in reconstituted soils pH was 5% lower than original ones, whereas organic C was 82% and N was 59% higher.