Abstract
Restoration of the degraded ecosystem is a global priority for achieving sustainable development. Although increasing ecosystem service is an important goal of ecological restoration, it is rarely used to inform mine reclamation. This study proposed a reclamation strategy that incorporated land suitability analysis and ecosystem service evaluation for a mining site in Liaoning Province, China. We assessed the land suitability for three reclamation alternatives and identified suitable land uses for each location by comparing their suitability levels. For areas that were suitable for multiple land uses with the same suitability level, the future land uses cannot be identified by land suitability analysis alone, and we employed ecosystem services evaluation to determine the optimal reclamation strategy. The results showed that forest could be restored throughout the entire mining site, agricultural land were most suitable in the western and southern parts, and developed land were in northern parts that were closer to roads and city centers. Our study showed that a large mining site can be reclaimed to different land uses and provided a practical framework for integrating ecosystem services into mine reclamation.
Highlights
Ecological restoration is widely used to reverse the environmental degradation and mitigate human pressures on natural ecosystems [1,2]
We propose a way to design ecological restoration strategy based on land suitability analysis and ecosystem service evaluation for an iron ore mining site in Liaoning Province, China
Our study proposed a simple yet straightforward strategy for post-mining reclamation and applied it to an iron mining site located in the central part of Liaoning Province, China
Summary
Ecological restoration is widely used to reverse the environmental degradation and mitigate human pressures on natural ecosystems [1,2]. Surface mining is one of the most intensive human disturbances that negatively impacts the environment and human health [3]. It degrades ecosystem functions because it removes vegetation, alters the hydrological cycle and soil conditions, disrupts fundamental ecological relationships, and reduces biodiversity [4]. Surface mining causes serious pollution to the air, water and soil. These negative impacts pose serious threats to human health. Mining activity produces a large amount of waste rocks and tailings, which pile up on the surface and occupy relatively large areas of land [6], reducing land use availability and increasing pressure on land supply
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