Environmental technologies for remediation of contaminated lands in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria: Opportunities for ecosystem services to host communities

Ngene, Stanley; Tota-Maharaj, Kiran

Abstract

Several remediation technologies have been tried in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria to address the persistent hydrocarbon contamination with little or no success as they are either inappropriate for the environment and thus complete remediation is not achieved or they negatively impacted the environment which consequently leads to air pollution. The removal of hydrocarbons from contaminated soil is an essential practice because of its attendant environmental and public health concerns. The efficiency of the available remediation methods is dependent on the amount of oil spilled, the oil penetration depth into the soil, soil type, the age and level of contamination. This work has considered a gamut of remediation technologies available and concluded that not minding the limitations and advantages, the bioremediation is a suitable and sustainable technology for the treatment of crude oil impacted lands that comes with additional benefits of ecosystem services implementation. This paper presents the applications and multiple benefits of bioremediation technologies in remediation of contaminated soils and crude oil polluted lands in Nigeria’s Niger Delta in a sustainable way to return the lands to original state and support ecosystem services inherent in natural habitats to the communities.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: Environmental Design and Management International Conference (EDMIC 2019): Drivers and Dynamics of Change in the Built Environment
• Start Date: May 20, 2019
• End Date: May 22, 2019
• Acceptance Date: Apr 5, 2019
• Publication Date: May 20, 2019
• Deposit Date: Sep 27, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 1, 2019
• Keywords: bioremediation, contamination, crude oil production, ecosystem services, Niger-Delta
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1779177