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Impact of Landfill Gas Exposure on Vegetation in Engineered Landfill Biocover Systems Implemented to Minimize Fugitive Methane Emissions from Landfills

Engineered landfill biocovers (LBCs) minimize the escape of methane into the atmosphere through biological oxidation. Vegetation plays a crucial role in LBCs and can suffer from hypoxia caused by the displacement of root-zone oxygen due to landfill gas and competition for oxygen with methanotrophic...

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Autores principales: Attalage, Dinu S., Hettiaratchi, J. Patrick A., Chu, Angus, Pokhrel, Dinesh, Jayasinghe, Poornima A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10001856/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36901459
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20054448
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author Attalage, Dinu S.
Hettiaratchi, J. Patrick A.
Chu, Angus
Pokhrel, Dinesh
Jayasinghe, Poornima A.
author_facet Attalage, Dinu S.
Hettiaratchi, J. Patrick A.
Chu, Angus
Pokhrel, Dinesh
Jayasinghe, Poornima A.
author_sort Attalage, Dinu S.
collection PubMed
description Engineered landfill biocovers (LBCs) minimize the escape of methane into the atmosphere through biological oxidation. Vegetation plays a crucial role in LBCs and can suffer from hypoxia caused by the displacement of root-zone oxygen due to landfill gas and competition for oxygen with methanotrophic bacteria. To investigate the impact of methane gas on vegetation growth, we conducted an outdoor experiment using eight vegetated flow-through columns filled with a 45 cm mixture of 70% topsoil and 30% compost, planted with three types of vegetation: native grass blend, Japanese millet, and alfalfa. The experiment included three control columns and five columns exposed to methane, as loading rates gradually increased from 75 to 845 gCH(4)/m(2)/d over a period of 65 days. At the highest flux, we observed a reduction of 51%, 31%, and 19% in plant height, and 35%, 25%, and 17% in root length in native grass, Japanese millet, and alfalfa, respectively. The column gas profiles indicated that oxygen concentrations were below the levels required for healthy plant growth, which explains the stunted growth observed in the plants used in this experiment. Overall, the experimental results demonstrate that methane gas has a significant impact on the growth of vegetation used in LBCs.
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spelling pubmed-100018562023-03-11 Impact of Landfill Gas Exposure on Vegetation in Engineered Landfill Biocover Systems Implemented to Minimize Fugitive Methane Emissions from Landfills Attalage, Dinu S. Hettiaratchi, J. Patrick A. Chu, Angus Pokhrel, Dinesh Jayasinghe, Poornima A. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Engineered landfill biocovers (LBCs) minimize the escape of methane into the atmosphere through biological oxidation. Vegetation plays a crucial role in LBCs and can suffer from hypoxia caused by the displacement of root-zone oxygen due to landfill gas and competition for oxygen with methanotrophic bacteria. To investigate the impact of methane gas on vegetation growth, we conducted an outdoor experiment using eight vegetated flow-through columns filled with a 45 cm mixture of 70% topsoil and 30% compost, planted with three types of vegetation: native grass blend, Japanese millet, and alfalfa. The experiment included three control columns and five columns exposed to methane, as loading rates gradually increased from 75 to 845 gCH(4)/m(2)/d over a period of 65 days. At the highest flux, we observed a reduction of 51%, 31%, and 19% in plant height, and 35%, 25%, and 17% in root length in native grass, Japanese millet, and alfalfa, respectively. The column gas profiles indicated that oxygen concentrations were below the levels required for healthy plant growth, which explains the stunted growth observed in the plants used in this experiment. Overall, the experimental results demonstrate that methane gas has a significant impact on the growth of vegetation used in LBCs. MDPI 2023-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC10001856/ /pubmed/36901459 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20054448 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Attalage, Dinu S.
Hettiaratchi, J. Patrick A.
Chu, Angus
Pokhrel, Dinesh
Jayasinghe, Poornima A.
Impact of Landfill Gas Exposure on Vegetation in Engineered Landfill Biocover Systems Implemented to Minimize Fugitive Methane Emissions from Landfills
title Impact of Landfill Gas Exposure on Vegetation in Engineered Landfill Biocover Systems Implemented to Minimize Fugitive Methane Emissions from Landfills
title_full Impact of Landfill Gas Exposure on Vegetation in Engineered Landfill Biocover Systems Implemented to Minimize Fugitive Methane Emissions from Landfills
title_fullStr Impact of Landfill Gas Exposure on Vegetation in Engineered Landfill Biocover Systems Implemented to Minimize Fugitive Methane Emissions from Landfills
title_full_unstemmed Impact of Landfill Gas Exposure on Vegetation in Engineered Landfill Biocover Systems Implemented to Minimize Fugitive Methane Emissions from Landfills
title_short Impact of Landfill Gas Exposure on Vegetation in Engineered Landfill Biocover Systems Implemented to Minimize Fugitive Methane Emissions from Landfills
title_sort impact of landfill gas exposure on vegetation in engineered landfill biocover systems implemented to minimize fugitive methane emissions from landfills
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10001856/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36901459
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20054448
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