Comparative resilience of soil and natural zeolite against adverse features of a municipal sewage. A preliminary investigation

A research was started aiming at evaluating the possible use of natural zeolites as exchange conditioners to improve and make durable the soil resilience against the adverse effects of the use of anomalous waters for irrigation purposes. This paper deals with a preliminary investigation on the comparative resilience of an Entisol with poor exchange properties and of a Neapolitan yellow tuff (NYT) sample against the adverse features of a dirty municipal sewage (DSW). Results showed that NYT treatment largely and significantly improved the poor soil exchange activity. In particular. NYT exchange sites selectively took up ammonium from DSW. As a consequence, ammonium was trapped, then protected against losses in the environment and, concurrently, exchangeable cations, such as K and Ca, were made free as plant nutrients. The results highlight the possible positive role of zeolitized tuff in restoring and sustaining soil resilience.