Abstract
Vegetation and soil restoration are the key to ecological reconstruction in the damaged areas of open-pit coal mining areas. Ecological stability is an important indicator of the degree of ecological restoration. In this study, the ecological stability and the process of plant and soil restoration were investigated at different refuse dumps in three coal mines, namely, the Wulanhada (WLHD) coal mine, the Liulingou (LLG) coal mine, and the Jinzhengtai (JZT) coal mine, in Jungar Banner. Results show that organic matter, total N, available N, and available K increased with the increase in restoration age at the two coal mines of WLHD and LLG. In the JZT coal mine, organic matter, total N, and available K firstly increased, and then slightly decreased with the increase in restoration age. The redundancy analysis indicates that most reclaimed mine soil properties (including soil moisture content, organic matter, total N, and available K) are positively correlated with plant species diversity in the three coal mines, while soil pH and soil bulk density showed a negative correlation with plant species diversity. Plant parameters increased with the years since revegetation, except the Pielou index for the WLHD coal mine, and the Pielou and Margalef indexes for the JZT coal mine. The Euclidean distance between the restoration areas and the natural reference areas decreased with the increase in restoration age. Our findings suggest that, in the three coal mines, the change law of ecological stability conformed to the logistic succession model. The same degree of ecological stability in different refuse dumps may correspond to different degrees of vegetation and soil development. This study emphasizes that ecological restoration in mining areas could benefit the structure of the plant community and the recovery of soil properties, which would eventually improve the ecological stability of coal mining areas.
Highlights
Seventy-five percent of the added value of coal production worldwide originates from opencast coal mining, and, in China, opencast coal production occupies 15% of the total coal production [1].Opencast coal mine areas currently represent the most typically degraded ecosystem [2]
Restoration activities performed at the refuse dumps of coal mines improved the soil environment for the colonization and establishment of plant species
The concentrations of organic matter (OM), total N, available N, and available K increased with the years since restoration in both the WLHD and the LLG coal mines
Summary
Seventy-five percent of the added value of coal production worldwide originates from opencast coal mining, and, in China, opencast coal production occupies 15% of the total coal production [1]. Opencast coal mine areas currently represent the most typically degraded ecosystem [2]. The development of coal resources in China gradually moved toward the western semi-arid areas. The exploitation of coal mines caused a series of environmental problems, such as ground subsidence [3], vegetation degradation [4], soil erosion [5], and heavy metal pollution [6,7], with the largest impacts on. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 1975; doi:10.3390/ijerph17061975 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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