Ecology and the Problems of Rehabilitating Wastes from Mineral Extraction

With the growing demand for minerals in the United Kingdom, it is likely that there will be a marked increase in the area of land affected by deep and surface mining and associated industries, e.g. ore-concentration plant, smelters. Thus, in future, in a densely populated, highly industrialized coun...

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Veröffentlicht in:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and physical sciences Mathematical and physical sciences, 1974-08, Vol.339 (1618), p.373-387
1. Verfasser: Goodman, G. T.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:With the growing demand for minerals in the United Kingdom, it is likely that there will be a marked increase in the area of land affected by deep and surface mining and associated industries, e.g. ore-concentration plant, smelters. Thus, in future, in a densely populated, highly industrialized country like the United Kingdom, the economic benefits of working minerals wherever they are found will have to be more carefully weighed against the economic and social costs of temporary or permanent disruption of urban, agricultural or amenity land. Improving our technical knowledge of how to revegetate inexpensively, land disturbed by mining helps to ensure that mineral extraction is not inhibited by nor necessarily inhibitory to other valid uses for land. Environmental problems which may be associated with mineral extraction are: (a) the visual ugliness of open pits, waste tips, and working mess; (b) the nuisance of wind- and water-borne dusts; (c) the health hazards to wildlife, crops, livestock and man of locally increased environmental burdens of potentially toxic metals (e.g. Pb, Cd, As, Zn, Cu, Ni) derived from wind- and water-borne mine dusts and smelter smokes; (d) the safety hazards of surface subsidence and tip-slippage from deep-mining. All these disamenities can be cured or reduced by the reclamation process which involves a blend of socio-economic, legal, planning, civil engineering and biological expertise devoted to development planning, site purchase, land clearance, land forming, stabilization, drainage and revegetation of the affected site. Revegetation is the least well understood of these procedures, but nevertheless an important component because experienced planners have found in practice that revegetation appears to restore to a derelict or disturbed site the greatest flexibility of potential re-use for the widest range of subsequent developments. Traditionally, three approaches to revegetation appear to have been used: (a) accept site conditions as they are, and plant with species known to tolerate harsh conditions, e.g. ecological 'pioneer' species; (b) improve the spoil as a medium for plant-growth by incorporating, for example, NPK-fertilizer, lime and organic matter; (c) use geological knowledge to pre-plan excavations so that toxic wastes are buried below the rooting zone. A combination of all three seems most desirable and involves careful species selection together with predictive physicochemical analysis of those site conditions w
ISSN:1364-5021
0080-4630
1471-2946
2053-9169
DOI:10.1098/rspa.1974.0127