Monisha Banerjee, Ph.D.

Monisha Banerjee, Ph.D.

Dr. Banerjee has eight years of experience restoring and reclaiming disturbed desert lands. Her work focuses on mine waste reclamation and riparian restoration. She has experience in a broad range of vegetation, physical and hydraulic soil characterization, and microbial analyses and survey techniques. She has written literature reviews covering a wide range of topics including soil clogging of infiltration basins for wastewater recharge, saline groundwater mitigation and reclamation in riparian environments, and bacterial diversity of desert soil. Her research has included analyzing the bacterial diversity of reclaimed mine tailings, designing and testing experimental mine waste covers, and exploring water conservation and augmentation in the Southwest. Current projects include vegetation, landscape, and erosion monitoring of reclaimed mine sites throughout Arizona and evaluating ore based on physical and hydraulic properties for copper and gold heap leaching.

Multiple Approaches To The Restoration Of Disturbed Desert Land

Three experiments were conducted to examine restoration of disturbed land in Arizona. The first experiment attempted to revegetate abandoned farmland by direct seeding native seeds and using various soil preparation techniques, amendments, and weeding of Salsola iberica. Only irrigation and weeding had a significant effect on seed germination and canopy cover. Irrigation increased plant cover on plots, but weeds dominated the cover. A seedbank study conducted near the end of the second growing season found the soil was dominated by weeds and contained few viable native seeds.