Post-Mining Vegetation Database Eastern Germany

Abstract

In eastern Germany, surface mining of lignite led to the destruction of entire landscapes and the interlinked ecosystems. After the German reunification in 1990, the majority of mining sites across eastern Germany were closed. During the last two decades, post-mining landscapes offered a unique chance to observe primary succession and have been subject to scientific research on spontaneous and assisted site recovery of heavily disturbed sites. Beginning in 1993, several research projects in surface-mined land have collected comprehensive vegetation data. The main objective was to gain knowledge about spatial and temporal processes of vegetation recovery and to derive guidelines for further restoration planning. Up to now, the post-mining vegetation database contains more than 5,000 vegetation releves that have been compiled over the last two decades. The majority of the plots investigated are located in the post-mining landscapes of the Central German lignite mining district. Also, releves were collected in the Lusatian mining region. Some of the plots were regularly revisited. Usually, the metadata of each releve includes information on plot location (GPS coordinates) and abiotic conditions (exposition, pH and other soil attributes). This report describes the available content in the Post-Mining Vegetation Database Eastern Germany (GIVD ID EU-DE-023).