A Review on Environmental Restoration of the Waste Landfills

쓰레기매립지의 환경복원

  • Kim, Kee Dae (Biodiversity Research Department, National Institute of Environmental Research) ;
  • Lee, Eun Ju (School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University)
  • 김기대 (국립환경연구원 생물다양성연구부) ;
  • 이은주 (서울대학교 생명과학부)
  • Received : 2003.07.29
  • Published : 2003.12.30

Abstract

Waste landfills have been the center of environmental problems and they must be restored due to environmental pollution, disgusting landscape, and cost of management. It is suggested that they be recycled urban space as cities expand. Specially, nonsanitary waste landfills which have no pollution prevention facilities cause serious problems. Restoring the landfills as parks and golf courses, so on makes more benefits because of cheap use land, closeness to urban area, flat topography applicable to parks and golf courses, and high land values after restoration and the changes to local recreation sites. Restoration of waste landfills is a complex, costly, and interdisciplinary work. But, the waste landfill is a manmade ecosystem. Control, restoration and postmanagement of waste landfills are very important problems. The role of vegetation prevents soil erosion, reduces soil water storage, and obstructs leachate seepage. Early restoration makes derelict lands into man park artificially geared to soil, vegetation, landforms and hydrology. But, Ideal restoration is to make stable ecosystem nature-friendly and compatible with surrounding landscape without more management. Landscape is structured hierarchically with patches and stands as small components and forms forest as large components. Therefore, landscape formation of the waste landfills needs much restoration process. There are many ecological restoration techniques for the waste landfills. Those are divided into artificial and natural methods. The artificial method is anthropogenic plantings while the natural method is to trigger and use succession processes. The most important thing in the restoration of waste landfills is to consider the final restoration objectives of each waste landfill. According to these objectives, the depth of covering layer, planting degree, and structural design should be determined. The effective restoration methods should be selected of artificial and natural options.

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