Research Projects

Land degradation, particularly in mining activities, poses a significant threat to global food security. The Global Land Outlook 2 from the UNCCD indicates that 20-40% of the global land area is degraded or degrading, with heavy metal concentrations, lack of organic matter and nutrients, and altered soil properties making it challenging to establish and maintain vegetative cover in degraded lands. To address this issue, it is crucial to find suitable plant species that can grow on polluted substrates, such as calcifuges and calcicoles, which can be used as pioneer species for mine site reclamation. Effective reclamation methods include phytostabilization and phytoextraction to mitigate metal mobility in the substrate or accumulate metals in shoots using indigenous metallophytes and hyperaccumulators. In India, there are four biodiversity hot spots with wide plant diversity resources within 2.4% of the geographical area. Hyperaccumulators are ideal candidates for remediation of metal-contaminated sites, but most studies conducted in laboratory conditions have unrealistic environmental metal concentrations. The lack of vegetative diversity near metal-based industries in urban areas limits remediation efforts. Ecologists classify plants into calcifuges and calcicoles based on their accumulation patterns of elements, such as Ca, P, and Fe, and their natural habitats. Calcifuge species show strong nutrient deficiency symptoms when exposed to excess Ca levels, while calcicole plants can live in acidic soil. Restoring mine degraded lands, especially bauxite mine sites, can be achieved through calcifuges and ideal calcicole plant diversity from Ca-enriched substrates, achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) and achieving sustainable Development Goals (sDGs) like climate change mitigation and terrestrial ecosystem restoration.