Degradation of ‘reclaimed’ lands previously disturbed by coal mining in Wales: Causes and remedies

Abstract

Large tracts of land, officially described as 'reclaimed' from former mineral workings, are in poor condition. Problems include gullying, soil erosion, soil compaction, accelerated run-off and poor vegetation cover. Some of these problems are caused by low quality and inappropriate engineering. Some are due to poor land husbandry. There is a need for a national system of quality control inspection for land reclamation sites and provision for training in the special problems of managing reclaimed lands. However, many further problems result from natural soil-forming processes, notably the accelerated breakdown of newly exposed minestones. This chokes the soils with fine particles, decreasing permeability and increasing bulk density. Current research directed to correcting this problem uses trees to build new self-sustaining soils from the ground up and to promote the development of a large and active community of soil organisms. It is hoped that the polysaccharide secretions of these organisms will bind the newly created clays into stable soil aggregates.

Evaluation of Quality of Some Rehabilitated Mined Soils within the AngloGold-Ashanti Concession in Ghana

“…The range in values of exchange acidity (1.68 -2.51 cmol/kg) for the soils can be described as moderate using the classification range of Amacher et al [14]. A quality index value of +1 was therefore assigned to all the soils which suggest that only plants sensitive to Al are likely to be affected when cultivated in these soils.…”

“…Ecological approach to sustainability incorporates resilience and requires diversity so that ecological restoration of mined land could represent the best approach to ensuring sustainability and maintenance of biodiversity. A reclaimed land could meet the major goal of sustainability, which is the land use options, for future generations [14]. Therefore, for reclamation to be ecologically sustainable, it should be assessed according to ecological principles such as stability of soils and nutrient cycling, vegetation establishment and animal recolonization [15].…”

A theoretical approach to the assessment of boron phytotoxicity resulting from the amelioration of minespoil with pulverised fuel ash

“…Some of these factors include waterlogging, accelerated run-off and erosion (Haigh, 1992), pyritic oxidation to form sulphuric acid (Van Breeman, 1973;Sutton and Dick, 1987) and high levels of phytotoxic iron, aluminium and manganese with low levels of essential plant nutrients (Rimmer andColbourn, 1978 Bloomfield et al, 1982;Soldevilla et al, 1992). Many minespoils can also suffer from compaction, increased bulk density, reduced water and air flow, and a reduction in the water available to plants (Elias et al, 1982;Binns, 1983;Wilson, 1987).…”

Contents of Potentially Risk Elements in Natural and Reclaimed Soils of the Sokolov Region

“…However, the studies dealing with the risk elements contents and behaviour in the reclaimed soils after coal mining are rather rare. The input of the potentially risk elements into the reclaimed soils can be potentially increased, as the related industry is often concentrated in the mining areas (HAIGH 2000). On the other hand, as the soils have been just recently exposed on the surface, the effect of the atmospheric deposition should be low, except for the soils where the natural topsoil cover with the previous accumulation of deposited substances was used.…”

“…In the World Reference Base for the soil resources, they were recently recognised as a separate reference soil group called Technosols ( IUSS Working Group WRB 2006). The soils formed after open-cast brown coal mining are formed by different reclamation procedures, including layering of mineral materials, covering with natural topsoil, planting with agricultural crops or forests, and other methods (HAIGH 2000).…”