Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2014 in the subject Environmental Sciences, grade: 1, , language: English, abstract: Exploration for natural resources and their utilization are present ever since the existence of human civilization. In India, land and water resources are the two important ones which determine our development. We possess large geographical area of 329 M.ha and unfortunately, nearly half of it is characterized with low soil fertility. Thus, nutrient limitation is an issue of concern in these marginal lands and several initiatives have been made in the past on their improvement. In contrast, we are also seeing nutrient surplus situations, sometimes even toxicities, in urban areas due to domestic and industrial waste disposals. Chemically, these wastes are organic in nature and rich in plant nutrients. An attempt was made to match these contrasting situations i.e. application of nutrient rich organic wastes to meet the nutrient requirements of tree species planted on less fertile wastelands. Thus, the objectives of the experiment were, - To characterize the wastelands in terms of physical and chemical features as soil limiting factors in afforestation programme - To characterize domestic and agro-industrial organic wastes for suitability as nutrient source in afforestation programme - To evaluate the changes in physical and chemical properties of wasteland soils due to organic wastes application - To evaluate the growth performance of tree species due to organic wastes application in wastelands