Recultivation in the Lusatian mining region ?Targets and prospects

Abstract

For more than 100 years, lignite is mined in open-cast mines in the Lusatian region of northeastern Germany. The increase of output quantities in the former GDR of up to about 200 million tons per year lead to problems for recultivation and loss of public acceptance. By 1993, about 39,000 ha of land were reclaimed, but 75,000 ha of land had been utilized by open-cast mining operations until that date. Forest recultivation has a tradition of more than 60 years and shows the ways for an economically acceptable recultivation by the mining industry. Agricultural recultivation of dumps is also performed successfully. Today, the future mining operation of LAUBAG being reduced to 5 open-cast mines uses specific overburden removal technologies in order to create favourable conditions for the arrangement of a safe, variable and Lusatia-typical post-mining landscape — the beginnings are already visible.