XtremeVeggies – Edible Halophyte Cultivation using Saline Water and Amended Underused Soils and Sediments

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Xtremeveggies - Halophyte cultivation using saline water and amended underused soils and sediments

Publication . Cortinhas, Ana Lúcia Teixeira; Abreu, Maria Manuela Silva Nunes Reis; Caperta, Ana Cristina Riepenhausen Delaunay; Custódio, Luísa Margarida Batista

ABSTRACT - The estuarine ecosystems are among the most productive, but also among the most threatened ecosystems. This PhD project arise as a response to two questions raised by society, which reflect two environmental problems in an estuarine context: the deposition of aquaculture sediments around the ponds, contributing to the degradation of a saltmarsh area in the Guadiana estuary; and an abandoned and degraded saltmarsh area, mainly due to the industrial activity, in the Tagus estuary. This thesis develops an answer to these two environmental issues based on Sustainable Development Goals: waste reutilisation to a circular economy, halt of biodiversity loss, develop agricultural practices to protect freshwater and contribute to the recovery of degraded areas. Sediments proprieties of aquaculture ponds in the Guadiana estuary and Fluvisol properties from the Tagus estuary were improved using organic and inorganic wastes from local activities: agriculture (substrate used in the strawberry crop, pruning wastes) and/or industries (distilleries, breweries), allowing reutilisation of these wastes that would be disposable. Contributing to the species and estuarine ecosystems conservation, the Technosols constructed with the sediments/Fluvisol permitted the cultivation of native plants, which contribute to the estuaries’ stabilisation, some of them endemics, threatened and/or have an economic potential: A. macrostachyum, L. algarvense, L. daveaui, e S. vera. Since these species are halophytes, high NaCl concentrations tolerant, they also were able to grow and develop under irrigation with water from the respective estuary (Guadiana or Tagus), being this methodology a freshwater protection cultivation technique. Altogether these measures may constitute the first step in the recovery of these degraded salt marsh areas in the Guadiana and Tagus estuaries

2023Tese de doutoramento

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Entidade financiadora

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Programa de financiamento

OE

Número da atribuição

COVID/BD/152390/2022