Hydraulic characteristics and vegetation performance of the Yellow River sediment modified by biochar

Abstract

The Yellow River sediment (YRS) is an important potential soil resource for the mine land reclamation and ecological restoration in the arid regions of northern China. However, it has the shortcomings of poor water-holding capacity and needs to be modified urgently. Therefore, two types of biochar, namely rice husk biochar (RHB) and coconut shell biochar (CSB), were utilized in this study to modify the YRS and compared with rice husk ash (RHA). Some engineering properties of the modified YRS (MYRS), including pore structure, water retention, permeability, and vegetation performance, were investigated by considering the effects of biochar types and dosages. Results showed that the addition of the three materials decreased the bulk density of the YRS and increased the volume of extremely micro pore (d<0.3 µm), as well as the effective porosity and capillary porosity, thus contributed to an increase in the water-holding capacity of the sediment. Among the three conditioners, RHB is optimal choice for improving the water-holding capacity of YRS. Furthermore, the effect becomes more pronounced with increasing application rates. With the addition of the three materials, the permeability coefficients of MYRS gradually decreased, while the water retention rate during evaporation significantly increased. The pot experiment showed that the three conditioners all had significant promoting effect on the growth of oats. In particular, compared to plain soil, the total biomass of oats grown for 21 days increased by 17.46%, 32.14%, and 49.60% after adding 2%, 4%, and 8% RHB, respectively. This study introduces a new approach for using YRS as planting soil in arid and semi-arid areas of China to facilitate mine ecological restoration.

Keywords

Biochar modification / Yellow River sediment / Soil water-holding capacity / Permeability coefficient / Vegetation performance

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Baoyong Liu: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Validation, Investigation. Mingji Liao: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Data curation. Yong Wan: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Resources, Methodology. Xingxing He: Writing - review & editing, Validation, Methodology, Funding acquisition. Dongli Wang: Writing - review & editing, Validation, Supervision.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare the following financial interests or personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Xingxing He is currently consultant to Jiangsu Institute of Zoneco Co, Ltd.

Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the Major Science And Technology Program of Inner Mongolia (Grant No. 2021ZD0007); National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52209134 and 52322810); Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 2023AFA080); Youth Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China (Grant No. BK20220230).

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