Ecological rehabilitation and long term monitoring of post mining areas
REECOL research results were shared on the 11th international conference on sustainable development in the minerals industry SDIMI 2024. During ‘Mine Closure’ session, PPC and TUC gave a presentation of their paper entitled: “Certification and ecological reclamation of mined areas: evolving standards and practices for sustainable mining”.
SDIMI 2024 was held on 9-11 JULY 2024, in Torino, Italy (https:/sdimi2024.org/)
BRGM organized another online meeting with partners involved in WP 5: Short and long term monitoring of ecosystem rehabilitation. A deliverable to be elaborated and soil sampling campaign to be carried out in Greece in September this year were discussed. The following partners participated: Poltegor-Instytut, Ineris, Valorhiz, TUC, GIG, Premogovnik Velenje, and PPC.
REECOL ideas and research results were shared by TUC during geoENV2024 – the 15th International Conference on Geostatistics for Environmental Applications, held on 19-21 JUNE 2024 in Chania, Greece.
A poster covering one of issues we focus on in our project related to legislation and certification in ecological reclamation of postmining areas and a roll-up with main information about the project were exhibited.
The poster entitled ‘Advancing Sustainable Mining: The Role of Legislation and Certification in Ecological Reclamation‘ was developed by TUC and PPC.
The REECOL partners met online to work on work package 5 (WP5): Short and long term monitoring of ecosystem rehabilitation. They discussed:
1) the choice of indicators to be measured on the sites that will be either rehabilitated during the project or monitored to assess long-term rehabilitation effects on soil functions,
2) the soil sampling strategy and protocols,
3) organization of soil sampling campaigns; the initial plan is to start in autumn this year.
The meeting was organized by WP5 leader BRGM, and the following project partners participated: Poltegor-Instytut, GIG, Ineris, VALORHIS, TUC, Premogovnik Velenje, PPC.
Two REECOL teams: from Instytut Techniki Górniczej KOMAG and from Poltegor-Instytut visited Konin Brown Coal Mine.
KOMAG team carried out drone flights to collect data for calculation of NDVI. NDVI, i.e. normalized differential vegetation index – is used to determine the state of plants’ health. Another drone flights over the same area and data collections will be carried out after implementation of REECOL solutions, there.
Poltegor team collected samples of soil that will be tested in the Institute’s laboratories.
Faculty of Environment at the University of Jan Evangelista in Ústí nad Labem is another university with which VUHU shared the REECOL project ideas.
On the international conference EGU 24, during a session “Mining and Post-mining innovative solutions for mining waste, and risk assessment for sustainable development”, the project partner School of Mineral Resources Engineering of Technical University of Crete gave a presentation covering one of issues we focus on in our project – a certification system for the evaluation of ecological rehabilitation of post-mining areas.
Also other project partner Public Power Corporation of Greece contributed to development of the presented material.
EGU General Assembly 2024 was held on 14-19 APR 2024, in Vienna, Austria (#EGU24)
VUHU shares the REECOL ideas (rehabilitation methodologies and approaches etc.) with universities. A great occasion for this was an excursion of Czech and foreign students of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague at the Mostecká basin, guided by the VUHU geologist RNDr. Michal Řehoř, Ph.D. The main attention was paid to the reclaimed areas of the Střimice and Radovesice landfills. These locations are considered to be rehabilitation case study areas in the project.
After the droneflights over mining heaps – in Bytom and Gliwice, the REECOL team in KOMAG discussed the suitability of the recorded locations for the further project activities, i.e. landrehabilitation with use of technology and solutions developed in the project. At the selected locations the soil will be fertilized with a compost developed in the project and cultivation of specially selected plants will be carried out there. The whole rehabilitation process will be monitored in the short-term and long-term mode – based on applicable indicators.
