These must be treated and disposed of one way or another - historically this has entailed discharge into our rivers and oceans. There is now increasing awareness that wastes should be considered a resource and that application to forests can significantly increase growth. Application of wastes to plantations is an attractive way to combine the benefits of waste treatment with enhanced forest production and carbon sequestration. An important benefit from these research projects, and from those studying similar themes in our laboratories around the country, is detailed knowledge of water and nutrient dynamics in forests. This has led to the development of processed-based models of tree functioning, and greatly increases our capacity to manage forests for maximum growth and environmental benefit.
Mined land is an excellent environment for integrating forests into multiple benefit systems.
An example is combining waste utilisation with tree plantations to rehabilitate mined land, sequester carbon, and produce forest products. Apart from carbon sequestration, natural and plantation forests confer a wide range of potential benefits on the environment. These include increased biodiversity protection from soil erosion, salinisation, acidification, and desertification. Verifying these benefits can often increase the attractiveness of new plantations.