The purpose of this report was to investigate how the abiotic factors (temperature, pH, nutrients, oxygen levels and water content) would affect the decomposition of oil-contaminated soil and how a variance in structured soil would affect the decomposition-rate. A minor field-study was made and soil where structured in five different ways (one was a default pile and was used as a reference). The study took place over 137 days and three samples were taken (start, middle, end) and analyzed for aromatic and aliphatic compounds. The result of this study shows that there is a significant difference between all methods for the aliphatic compounds and no significant difference for the aromatic compounds. The abiotic factors that affect decomposition vary from organism to organism, depending on what type of environment it will function the best. In this type of environment it could be necessary to change temperature interval, nutrient availability or pH to optimize the conditions for the microorganisms. The conclusion of this report is that the structured of the soil-piles will affect decomposition rate, but it is unsure how much. Further research is needed to conclude how the soil should be structured to maximize the decomposition-rate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-98140 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Svensson, Sofia |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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