Spontaneous revegetation vs. forestry reclamation in post-mining sand pits

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international Vol. 23; no. 14; pp. 13598 - 13605
• Main Authors: Šebelíková, Lenka, Řehounková, Klára, Prach, Karel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.07.2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Abandoned mines; Anniversaries; Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Central European region; Czech Republic; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecotoxicology; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Environmental Restoration and Remediation - economics; Environmental Restoration and Remediation - methods; Environmental science; Flowers & plants; Forestry; forests; Groundwater; How Can We Restore the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Mining and Industrial Sites?; Land reclamation; land restoration; Methods; Mining; Plant Development; Plant species; Reclamation; Revegetation; Sand; species diversity; Species richness; Studies; Vegetation; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Water table; Wildlife conservation; Czech Republic; ANE, Europe; Czech Rep; Central European region; Mining; Afforestation; Spontaneous succession; Passive restoration; Vegetation
• ISSN: 0944-1344; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-015-5330-9

Vegetation development of sites restored by two different methods, spontaneous revegetation and forestry reclamation, was compared in four sand pit mining complexes located in the southern part of the Czech Republic, central Europe. The space-for-time substitution method was applied to collect vegetation records in 13 differently aged and sufficiently large sites with known history. The restoration method, age (time since site abandonment/reclamation), groundwater table, slope, and aspect in all sampled plots were recorded in addition to the visual estimation of percentage cover of all present vascular plant species. Multivariate methods and GLM were used for the data elaboration. Restoration method was the major factor influencing species pattern. Both spontaneously revegetated and forestry reclaimed sites developed towards forest on a comparable timescale. Although the sites did not significantly differ in species richness (160 species in spontaneously revegetated vs. 111 in forestry reclaimed sites), spontaneously revegetated sites tended to be more diverse with more species of conservation potential (10 Red List species in spontaneous sites vs. 4 Red List species in forestry reclaimed sites). These results support the use of spontaneous revegetation as an effective and low-cost method of sand pit restoration and may contribute to implementation of this method in practice.