Biochar-Mediated Soil Restoration, Biodiversity Offsets, and Ecosystem Services Valuation: Connecting Microbiology, Materials Engineering, Forestry, Law, Environmental Accounting, and Regional Planning

Author

OPEYEMI TUNMISE AJEIGBE, Stanley Osazuwa Omobude, Sulaimon Deborah Abosede, OLUWATOSIN MICHAEL OLADIGBOLU, Aluko Opeyemi Ayodeji, Marzuq Korede Sanni

Abstract

 Biochar-mediated soil restoration, biodiversity offsetting, and ecosystem services valuation are three approaches that are usually treated separately, but they address the same problem: land that has been degraded by industry and resource extraction. Biochar is a carbon-rich material made by heating forest and crop waste without oxygen. Because it is porous, it can act as a carrier for pollutant-degrading bacteria, holding them in place and keeping them alive during long storage. This kind of immobilisation protects hydrocarbon-oxidising bacteria such as Rhodococcus erythropolis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and can raise their viable numbers by two to five orders of magnitude [1-3]. Biochars modified with silicon, made from lignin through pyrolysis, reach cadmium (Cd2+) adsorption capacities of 315.53 mg/g through ion exchange and carbon-silicon (C-Si) complexation, and at the same time they favour cadmium-resistant microbes such as Sphingomonas and improve overall soil functioning [4-6]. Newer enzyme-immobilisation methods that fix PETase, laccase, and manganese peroxidase onto nanomaterial carriers offer a further route for breaking down microplastics and petroleum hydrocarbons in forest soils [7-9]. These restoration tools connect with biodiversity conservation and with the mitigation hierarchy of avoid, minimise, restore, and compensate. Biodiversity offsets are the last step in that hierarchy. They are meant to balance the biodiversity that is lost to development with equal gains elsewhere, but their results are limited by weak counterfactual baselines, multipliers that are set too low, and poor long-term governance [10-13]. Legal systems deliver offsets in different ways - developer-led schemes, market-based mitigation banking, and in-lieu fee programmes - and each creates different lines of accountability, while the requirement of like-for-like equivalence means a compensation site must stay ecologically comparable to the site that was lost and be placed in the right landscape setting [10,14-16]. Forest and wildlife management therefore depend on long-term protection, adaptive management, and landscape-scale planning for offset sites that hold threatened forest ecosystems and endangered species [17]. Ecosystem services valuation links ecological restoration, natural capital accounting, and regional planning by pricing the services that forests, wetlands, and other ecosystems provide [18-20]. The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) offers a standard way to track ecosystem assets and service flows in both physical and monetary terms, and valuation methods such as avoided cost, replacement cost, travel cost, hedonic pricing, contingent valuation, benefit transfer, and deliberative valuation allow planners to assess ecosystem benefits [18,20-24]. Spatial prioritisation tools such as Zonation combine biodiversity and carbon data to map conservation priorities, and they show that the trade-offs between carbon storage, biodiversity, and economic return differ from place to place [25,26]. Taken together, these strands show how material-based soil remediation, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services valuation, environmental accounting, and spatial planning can be combined to support forest restoration, ecological protection, and regional environmental decisions that rest on evidence.

Keywords

Biochar materials; Biodiversity offsets; Ecosystem services valuation; Environmental accounting; Soil restoration; Spatial planning.

Full Text:

Download Paper PDF

References

[1] M. S. Kuyukina, I. B. Ivshina, T. N. Kamenskikh, M. V. Bulicheva, and G. I. Stukova, "Survival of cryogel-immobilized Rhodococcus strains in crude oil-contaminated soil and their impact on biodegradation efficiency," International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, vol. 84, pp. 118-125, Oct. 2013

[2] B. Zhang, L. Zhang, and X. Zhang, "Bioremediation of petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated soil by petroleum-degrading bacteria immobilized on biochar," RSC Advances, vol. 9, no. 60, pp. 35304-35311, 2019

[3] X. Chen, G. Shan, J. Shen, F. Zhang, Y. Liu, and C. Cui, "In situ bioremediation of petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated soil: isolation and application of a Rhodococcus strain," International Microbiology, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 411-421, Dec. 2022

[4] X. Li, W. Ding, S. Zhu, Q. Zhen, and D. She, "Silica-structured lignin biochar engineered via pyrolysis for multifunctional remediation of Cd-contaminated soils," Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 538, p. 147266, Jan. 2026

[5] F. Huang, L.-Y. Gao, R.-R. Wu, H. Wang, and R.-B. Xiao, "Qualitative and quantitative characterization of adsorption mechanisms for Cd2+ by silicon-rich biochar," Science of The Total Environment, vol. 731, p. 139163, Aug. 2020

[6] S. Yuan, J. Zhang, and Z. Tan, "Adsorption effect and the removal mechanism of silicate composite biochar particles on cadmium in soil," Chemosphere, vol. 303, p. 134970, Sep. 2022

[7] S. P. Schwaminger et al., "Immobilization of PETase enzymes on magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles for the decomposition of microplastic PET," Nanoscale Advances, vol. 3, no. 15, pp. 4395-4399, 2021

[8] H. Adamu et al., "Harnessing bio and (Photo)catalysts for microplastics degradation and remediation in soil environment," Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 370, p. 122543, Nov. 2024

[9] W. Zhang et al., "Laccase immobilized on nanocomposites for wastewater pollutants degradation: current status and future prospects," Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering, vol. 46, no. 11, pp. 1513-1531, Jul. 2023

[10] M. Maron, A. von Hase, F. Quétier, L. J. Sonter, S. Theis, and S. O. S. E. zu Ermgassen, "Biodiversity offsets, their effectiveness and their role in a nature positive future," Nature Reviews Biodiversity, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 183-196, Feb. 2025

[11] S. O. S. E. zu Ermgassen, J. Baker, R. A. Griffiths, N. Strange, M. J. Struebig, and J. W. Bull, "The ecological outcomes of biodiversity offsets under 'no net loss' policies: A global review," Conservation Letters, vol. 12, no. 6, Jul. 2019

[12] J. W. Bull, S. P. Lloyd, and N. Strange, "Implementation Gap between the Theory and Practice of Biodiversity Offset Multipliers," Conservation Letters, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 656-669, Feb. 2017

[13] L. J. Sonter, N. Tomsett, D. Wu, and M. Maron, "Biodiversity offsetting in dynamic landscapes: Influence of regulatory context and counterfactual assumptions on achievement of no net loss," Biological Conservation, vol. 206, pp. 314-319, Feb. 2017

[14] W. N. S. Arlidge et al., "A Global Mitigation Hierarchy for Nature Conservation," BioScience, vol. 68, no. 5, pp. 336-347, Apr. 2018

[15] M. Maron et al., "Taming a Wicked Problem: Resolving Controversies in Biodiversity Offsetting," BioScience, vol. 66, no. 6, pp. 489-498, Apr. 2016

[16] A.-C. Vaissière and H. Levrel, "Biodiversity offset markets: What are they really? An empirical approach to wetland mitigation banking," Ecological Economics, vol. 110, pp. 81-88, Feb. 2015

[17] P. H. S. Brancalion, F. Hua, F. H. Joyce, A. Antonelli, and K. D. Holl, "Moving biodiversity from an afterthought to a key outcome of forest restoration," Nature Reviews Biodiversity, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 248-261, Mar. 2025

[18] G.-M. Lange, "Environmental accounting: Introducing the SEEA-2003," Ecological Economics, vol. 61, no. 4, pp. 589-591, Mar. 2007

[19] B. Edens and L. Hein, "Towards a consistent approach for ecosystem accounting," Ecological Economics, vol. 90, pp. 41-52, Jun. 2013

[20] R. Tinch et al., "Economic valuation of ecosystem goods and services: a review for decision makers," Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 359-378, Jun. 2019

[21] A. La Notte and C. Rhodes, "The theoretical frameworks behind integrated environmental, ecosystem, and economic accounting systems and their classifications," Environmental Impact Assessment Review, vol. 80, p. 106317, Jan. 2020

[22] L. Richardson, J. Loomis, T. Kroeger, and F. Casey, "The role of benefit transfer in ecosystem service valuation," Ecological Economics, vol. 115, pp. 51-58, Jul. 2015

[23] L. Bunse, O. Rendon, and S. Luque, "What can deliberative approaches bring to the monetary valuation of ecosystem services? A literature review," Ecosystem Services, vol. 14, pp. 88-97, Aug. 2015

[24] S. Vallecillo, A. La Notte, G. Zulian, S. Ferrini, and J. Maes, "Ecosystem services accounts: Valuing the actual flow of nature-based recreation from ecosystems to people," Ecological Modelling, vol. 392, pp. 196-211, Jan. 2019

[25] J. Lehtomäki and A. Moilanen, "Methods and workflow for spatial conservation prioritization using Zonation," Environmental Modelling & Software, vol. 47, pp. 128-137, Sep. 2013

[26] Y. Shi, A. Tonda, and F. Accatino, "Handling ecosystem service trade-offs: the importance of the spatial scale at which no-loss constraints are posed," Landscape Ecology, vol. 38, no. 5, pp. 1163-1175, Mar. 2023

[27] B. G. Norton and D. Noonan, "Ecology and valuation: Big changes needed," Ecological Economics, vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 664-675, Sep. 2007

[28] F. Peng et al., "An effective strategy for biodegradation of high concentration phenol in soil via biochar-immobilized Rhodococcus pyridinivorans B403," Environmental Science and Pollution Research, vol. 31, no. 23, pp. 33752-33762, Apr. 2024

[29] B. Xiao et al., "Enhanced Biodegradation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Contaminated Soils Using Biochar-Immobilized Mixed Bacteria: Mechanisms and Microbial Responses," Water, Air, & Soil Pollution, vol. 236, no. 7, May 2025

[30] T. Liu et al., "Adsorption of cadmium and lead from aqueous solution using modified biochar: A review," Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 106502, Feb. 2022

[31] A. L. Cowie, "Biochar as a fast track to net zero," Nature Food, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 203-204, Feb. 2023

[32] T. T. Van Nguyen et al., "Valorization of agriculture waste biomass as biochar: As first-rate biosorbent for remediation of contaminated soil," Chemosphere, vol. 307, p. 135834, Nov. 2022

[33] P. Gibbons, A. Macintosh, A. L. Constable, and K. Hayashi, "Outcomes from 10 years of biodiversity offsetting," Global Change Biology, vol. 24, no. 2, Nov. 2017

[34] G. Heal, "Environmental accounting for ecosystems," Ecological Economics, vol. 61, no. 4, pp. 693-694, Mar. 2007

Share your valuable work from Social Media Buttons