Trees and Shrubs Monitoring Using an
Ecological Approach: The Conclusion of the
Restoration Project of Borgotrebbia Landfill
(Northern Italy) by Cassinari
C in Environmental Analysis & Ecology Studies_international journal of environmental sciences
Abstract
Plants growth monitoring in restored landfills are poorly available in literature. These data might be
of critical importance for the evaluation and improvement of current and future restoration projects.
Our study was focused on the plant’s growth monitoring during a Life project (LIFE10 ENV/IT/000400
NEW LIFE), designed to restore a closed landfill (located in Northern Italy) using reconstituted soils. The
growth monitoring was conducted on mortality rate, stress symptoms and phenological cycle completion
of 10 plant species (trees and shrubs). Data were acquired during the 12 months following the end of
the restoration with an ecological approach, using Landolt’s indices and CSR functional strategy. It was
observed that the stress-tolerant and the heliphilous ruderal species were the ones that best adapt to the
restored environment (dead plants:0-39%; unhealthy plants: 24-42%), whereas the most competitive
species were the ones with highest mortality (17-43%) and stress symptoms (43-51%).
Keywords:Restoration; Landfill; Plant monitoring; Ecological indices; Functional strategy
Introduction
Environmental restoration of degraded lands is one of the most urgent thematic to
solve [1] due to world population growth and urban centres expansions, two phenomena
causing land degradation and water and land ecosystem imbalances [2]. On a global level, soil
consumption and land degradation [3] caused by urbanization proceed at a rate of 30ha day-
1 (ISPRA 2017). In order to fight degradation, during the last decades many environmental
restorations took place in the world [4-10].
In urbanized areas, one of the most emblematic examples of degradation are the
landfills, where solid wastes are compressed and isolated in order to avoid leachate losses;
when the landfills are closed, they are covered with soil and planted, but none monitoring
and maintaining are done, so often the closed landfills became a degraded land. Led by this
chance, in the last years many closed landfill restoration projects took place [11-25] along
with the development of more sustainable methods and technologies for municipal solid
wastes management [26]: recycling process, new generation incinerators and bio-digester
[27].
Altogether, these topics are increasingly attracting the attention of our society, with a
growing number of initiatives for their support and promotion. The EU Biodiversity Strategy
aims to ensure by 2020, ecosystems and their services are maintained and enhanced by
establishing green infrastructure (strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural
areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of
ecosystem services (EU Commission 2016) and restoring at least 15% of degraded ecosystems
(EU Commission 2010). Despite all the efforts by different researchers (engineers, biologists,
pedologists, chemists, architects) to improve the environmental
restoration projects in highly degraded contexts, like landfills,
there’s still a lot of work to do. Firstly, the restored areas are to be
surveyed by acquiring data through a long-term monitoring; this is
the only way to gain knowledge of possible errors occurred during
the realization.
Despite the importance of this kind of survey, in many cases it’s
not possible to do it, mainly because of founds. Due to this, the data
concerning the main environmental components (soil, vegetation,
water) of restored areas are low [28-39], especially those regarding
restored landfills [17,15,21,22,40]. The main aim of this work was
to present an ecological survey of trees and shrubs planted during
a Life project (LIFE10 ENV/IT/000400 NEW LIFE; web site: http://
www.lifeplusecosistemi.eu), co-founded by European Union, aimed
at restoring a closed landfill located in Piacenza (Emilia Romagna,
Italy) using reconstituted soils [28]. The ecological survey, to
understand the species’ responses in the new environment, was
carried out using the Landolt’s ecological indices [41] functional
strategy in accordance with the bioindication principles [42]. This
research wants to prove how such simple and cheap methods may
grant useful information about the restoration and the plants’
adaptation to restored areas.
Study area
The closed landfill is located in Borgotrebbia, municipal
territory of Piacenza (Emilia-Romagna, Italy) near Trebbia River
(coordinates: 45°04’13’’ N, 9°39’33’’ E; altitude: 60m) (Figure 1).
The area, 20ha wide, is in Trebbia Fluvial Park and, partially, inside
a Site of Community Importance (SCI 4010016 Basso Trebbia). The
solid urban wastes’ landfill was active between 1972 and 1985.
Wastes were buried in a 4-5m layer and then covered with a 20-
30cm cap of degraded soils. In 2012, with the New Life project,
the spontaneous vegetation and the soil of the closed landfill
were studied [28,43-46] (Figure 2). Several ruderal species of
Sellarietea mediae and Artemisietea vulgaris phytosociological
classes, typical of degraded environments, were observed. The cap
soil had poor water holding capacity, low organic carbon content,
it was compacted and with stoniness, its values of clay, total
CaCO3, CEC, P2O5, K2O, pH and salinity were used to calculate, in 5
sampling points, LCC [47] & FCC [48] (Figure 1 & Table 1). In this
way, the study area soils were described having sever limitation for
agricultural use, limiting their use to grazing or wildlife and with
low fertility [28,46].
This was in accordance with the lack of more exigent species,
like trees and shrubs. The restoration of the closed landfill was made
by means of soil restoration by reconstitution. Reconstituted soils
were produced by a technology (mcm Ecosistemi Patent), designed
to act on two types of soils: on Technosol and degraded soils. By
the means of this pedotechnique chemical and mechanical actions
were applied to a mixture of degraded soil and environmental
and pedological suitable materials such as waste of productive
activities (sludge from paper industry and cellulose transformation
processes, washing sludge of inert materials and water treatment
sediments for drinking water supplies): the mixture was crushed,
so the added organic fraction was incorporated into the mineral
particles of the soil, then a mechanical compression realized the
new reconstituted soil aggregates [46-48].
From October 2014 to August 2017, 10ha of the study area
were covered with reconstituted soils 1m deep. Physicochemical
properties of the reconstituted soil were performed and so LCC and
FCC were calculated in the same previous sample points (Figure
1 & Table 1). The new soils were described having moderate
limitations that restrict the choice of plants or that require
moderate conservation practices and characterized by a high
fertility [46-70], thus confirming other studies on reconstituted
soils [28, 45,46,49,50]. From October 2016 to December 2017, over
3,000 trees and shrubs of 16 autochthonous species (Table 2), were
planted in the area (Figure 3). All these plants were no more than 2
years old. The 16 species had to improve the ecological conditions
and the landscape of the area, they had to produce edible fruits for
birds, being the area a resting spot for migratory birds. In order to
promote the plants to take roots, cuts of the herbaceous vegetation
and a watering program during the drought season were made and
still continue.
Figure 1:Geographical localization of the study
area.

Figure 2:Closed landfill before environmental
restoration.

Figure 3:Tree planting intervention and monitoring
area definition.

Table 1:Physical-chemical parameters of landfill soil before (2011) and after (2016) environmental restoration in the 5
sample points (data from Manfredi et al., 2019).

SP sample point; *Data are the average of 3 sub-samples
Table 2:Floristic list of trees and shrubs planted.

Material and Methods
Trees and shrubs’ monitoring were conducted on a monthly
basis across 2017 considering 8-400m2 (20x20m)-plots (A, B, C, D,
E, F, G and H) homogeneously distributed on the area. In every plot
all the species were identified using Pignatti [68] and numbered. For
every species, a radar chart with Landolt’s ecological indices (2010)
(T, temperature; L, light intensity; F, soil moisture; R, substrate
reaction; N, nutrients; H, humus; D, aeration) and a triangular plot
with CSR strategy of each species were made to compare the plants
ecological needs with the related functional strategy. The functional
strategy of each plant was retrieved from recent literature [51].
Monthly the following data were collected in every plot:
A. Number of dead plants (without considering dead plants
within 14 days after planting);
B. Number of plants showing stress-related symptoms (leaf
yellowing and/or plant pathologies);
C. Number of flowered plants;
D. Number of plants producing fruits.
The % mortality rate was evaluated for every species as follows:
Where M was mortality rate, d was the number of dead plants
during 2017 and p was the size of the population in which the dead
plants occurred. The % of unhealthy, flowered and fruit-producing
plants were calculated in the same way. Data were then organized
in a matrix and statistically analyzed with Principal Component
Analysis (PCA). PCA was performed using the “vegan” package [52]
of R 3.5.1 software (R Development Core Team 2018). Species with
less than 8 individuals were excluded from calculations because not
significant.
M = d/p * 100
Where M was mortality rate, d was the number of dead plants
during 2017 and p was the size of the population in which the dead
plants occurred. The % of unhealthy, flowered and fruit-producing
plants were calculated in the same way. Data were then organized
in a matrix and statistically analyzed with Principal Component
Analysis (PCA). PCA was performed using the “vegan” package [52]
of R 3.5.1 software (R Development Core Team 2018). Species with
less than 8 individuals were excluded from calculations because not
significant.
Result
215 plants from 16 different species were planted inside the
8 plots (Table 3). 6 species (Ulmus Minor, Quercus robur, Carpinus
betulus, Salix alba, Corylus avellana, Spartium junceum) were
represented by less than 8 individuals and so were excluded
from the statistical analysis and results.The requirement of the
species, based on the ecological indices of [41] were evaluated
from the radar charts analysis (Figure 4). The species had similar
requirements of temperature (T), light intensity (L) and soil
water content (F) being moderately heliophilous, typical of mild
weather and tolerating a moderate soil water content. Euonymus
europaeus, Rhamnus cathartica, Frangula alnus and Sambucus nigra
had a peculiar tolerance for poorly aerated soils (D) (compact
soils), Sambucus nigra required a lot of soil nutrients (N) whereas
Rhamnus cathartica and Frangula alnus tolerated poorly fertile
soils. Frangula alnus was the only species that required elevated
amounts of humus (H).
Table 3:Number of monitored plants in the 8 plots.
A, B, C, D, E, F, G & H: Plots *Species with less than 8 individuals

Figure 4:Radar charts of ecological indices of
Landolt et al. (2010) for every monitored species.
Key: T-Temperature; L-Light intensity; F-Soil
moisture; R-Substrate reaction; N-Nutrients;
H-Humus; D-Aeration.

From CSR triangular graph (Figure 5) it was possible to observe
the functional strategies of the species. The CSR strategies were:
Cornus mas, Euonymus europaeus and Rhamnus cathartica S/CSR,
Rosa canina SR/CSR, Cornus sanguinea CS/CSR and Acer campestre
CSR. Frangula alnus (S/SR) and Ligustrum vulgare (S/CS) were the
most stress-tolerant species, whereas Sambucus nigra was the most
competitive (C/CSR) and Prunus spinosa was the most ruderal (SR/
CSR) [51].<./
All the 10 species showed stress-related symptoms (Figure 6)
while mortality didn’t occur in 3 of the 10 species (Acer campestre,
Rosa canina, and Ligustrum vulgare) during 2017. Only Cornus
sanguinea, Ligustrum vulgare, Frangula alnus were able to produce
flowers but only Ligustrum vulgare e Frangula alnus completed
their biological cycle by producing mature fruits (Figure 7), this
could be due to the unlike time required by the species to reach
sexual maturity. From PCA biplot (Figure 8) emerged that the
species showing higher mortality and stress rates were the most
competitive that required soil nutrients, available water content
and a neutral-to-basic pH. The ruderal heliophilous species,
requiring well aerated soils, were the ones showing less suffering
from the new environment.
Figure 5:CSR strategies of the ten species
considered.

Figure 6:Percentage of dead and unhealthy plants.

Figure 7:Percentage of flowered plants and fruitproducing
plants.

Figure 8:PCA ordination biplot of species (1. Acer
campestre; 2. Rosa canina; 3. Prunus spinosa; 4.
Cornus mas; 5. Cornus sanguinea; 6. Ligustrum
vulgare; 7. Euonymus europaeus; 8. Rhamnus
cathartica; 9. Frangula alnus; 10. Sambucus
nigra).
Key: T-Temperature; L-Light Intensity; F-Soil
Moisture; R-Substrate Reaction; N-Nutrients;
H-Humus; D-Aeration; C-Competitor Strategy;
S-Stress-Tolerant Strategy; R-Ruderal Strategy;
Mortality, Percentage Of Dead Plants; Unhealthy,
Percentage of Unhealthy Plants; Flowers,
Percentage Of Flowered Plants; Fruits, Percentage
Of Plants With Fruits..

Discussion
This study is an example of a simple and effective ecological
approach to post-restoration vegetation survey. These data are
useful not only to biologists and botanists, but also to all the people
involved in planning and evaluation restoration projects. The
combined use of traditional (ecological indices) and innovative
(CSR functional strategy) methods is successful. Landolt’s indices
application allowed to understand that the most fitting species
for the reconstituted soil were the ones best tolerating elevated
luminous radiation levels (heliophilous) requiring well-aerated
and humus-rich soils, like Acer campestre, Rosa canina, Prunus
spinosa, Ligustrum vulgare, Rhamnus cathartica and Frangula
alnus. Ecological indices confirmed that, being the reconstituted
soils well-aerated, non-compacted, rich in organic matter and high
fertile.
CSR strategy represents a univocal system applicable to every
tracheophyte [51] and as reported for the first time in this study,
applicable also to restored areas survey. It can be observed that
the most competitive species had more adaptation problems
(mortality rate and stress-related symptoms) whereas ruderal and
stress-tolerant plants best adapted to the restored environment.
This result was confident with the fact that competitive species
could live in an environment without stresses (defined as external
constraints which limit the rate of dry matter production [53] or
disturbances (factors causing plant biomass destruction [53].
Indeed, transferring highly competitive plants from a protected
artificial environment, like a nursery, to a non-protected one, like
a restored landfill, may have represented the main stress able to
affect their survival, health and ability to complete the phenological
cycle. So, to improve the overall restoration efficiency, it can be said
that stress-tolerant and ruderal species, based on their CSR strategy,
had to be chosen rather than competitive ones. Even though
nowadays CSR strategy of over 3,000 species is known [51,54-56]
there’s still a lot of work to do to define the functional strategy for
as many as possible species included herbaceous species, given
their importance in anthropic-perturbed ecosystems. Indeed, in
synphytosociology (or dynamic phytosociology) [57], is known
that the initial stages in a forest formation process are herbaceous
species [58,59] and that the same are in environmental restored
areas [60,31,55,56]. Further surveys should be carried out on the
study area on the whole vegetation system (including herbaceous
species). These kinds of surveys, being the key to understand the
highly complex dynamics in the restored areas, should be made
till the current potential vegetation [61-70] will be reached.
Unfortunately, it’s not so, because these monitoring are costly, and
they need technicians with specific skills.
Conclusion
This study highlighted how monitoring trees and shrubs growth,
using both classic (ecological indices) and modern (CSR functional
strategy) methods, may give useful information to improve the
interventions efficiency in a restored landfill. Based on the results,
it would recommend those involved in environmental restoration
projects to select the plants accordingly to their specific CSR
functional strategy. In order to obtain better environmental results,
autochthonous ruderal and stress-tolerant plants should be used.
Moreover, it would like to urge to monitor the post-intervention for
at least 20 years [31]. Even though the long-term surveys are time
consuming and expensive, are also fundamental to understand the
highly complex dynamics underlying the restored areas. Lastly, the
use of new technologies and materials, like reconstituted soils, are
hoped to be applied to closed landfills restoration, in a world-wide
optic, to fight environmental degradation.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by Life+ project “Recupero
ambientale di un suolo degradato e desertificato mediante una
nuova tecnologia di trattamento di ricostituzione del terreno” (Life
10 ENV/IT/000400 New Life, http://www.lifeplusecosistemi.eu).
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