Because of its rich industrial heritage, Wallonia (Belgium) has about 5,000 industrial wastelands. Among them, 3500 wastelands are polluted. The regional government has supported for twenty years the regeneration of polluted wastelands. The aim is threefold: to decontaminate the wastelands, to economically redevelop areas affected by de-industrialization and to improve the urban environment. In addition, there is growing competition for land use for different types of crops: food, energy and bioactive molecules. This calls for innovation to diversify production methods on marginal soils.

The aim of the ECOSOL project is to test the feasibility of producing bioactive molecules useful for the pharmaceutical industry through alternative systems, i.e. plants grown on industrial wasteland during periods of underuse.

Five laboratories of the University of Liège with complementary expertise in plant adaptation, geopedology, mass spectrometry, pharmacognosy and agronomy are involved in this project as well as the Public Corporation to support Environmental Quality (SPAQuE) in charge of the remediation of polluted wasteland in Wallonia. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Wallonia are funding the project from 2016 to 2022.

A wasteland called “Produits chimiques d’Auvelais» (5.5ha) has been chosen for this case study. At this location, a chemical plant was in operation from 1850 to 1980. The first soil analyses carried out by the SPAQuE in 2010 showed high and heterogeneous pollution in heavy metals and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons.

The project started with an inventory of the specific flora of the polluted wasteland. Then, before the first rehabilitation works were carried out, the physicochemical properties of the soil and the contaminant content were determined. Currently, the physiological and genetic characterization of a brassicaceae species identified on the polluted wasteland and the first field trial of candidate plants are underway.