REECOL project presented during EGU24 conference

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)

REECOL ideas shared with Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague

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.

KOMAG discusses suitability of visited heaps for the project needs

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.

The 2nd day of the project progress meeting in Velenje

On the 2nd day of the REECOL project progress meeting, the project partners visited the lands of Premogovnik Velenje (PV) coal mine that undergo rehabilitation and the Coal Mining Museum of Slovenia in Velenje – both the surface and underground part. At both places they acquired a lot of interesting information, among others about:
– the process of phasing out the coal excavation at the PV mine, and about their past, current and future land reahabilitation activities
– the technology of coal excavation in the PV mine
– the beginnings and history of the PV coal mine, persons that played an important role in it, and coal miners’ everyday life in the past.

Related links – visit in the museum: i) https://tinyurl.com/5n6mm66r; ii) http://muzej.rlv.si/en/

Drone flights over mining heaps – in Bytom and Gliwice

KOMAG continues their work with drone flights to be ready for monitoring of rehabilitation of postmining lands with use of the technologies and solutions developed in the REECOL project. This time the flights were carried out over two locations – ‘Mokry’ heap in Bytom and ‘Sośnica’ heap in Gliwice. The drone with a multispectral camera bought in the project was used. Data necessary for calculation of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were collected.

Selection of areas for reasearch on the compost developed by Poltegor

Poltegor-Instytut recently visited the Konin Brown Coal Mine, focusing on the Pątnów II B open-pit mine, where mining activities ceased in 2023. The purpose of this visit was to select areas for research on the compost mixture developed by the Institute.
Soil amples were taken as the first step in the efforts to address soil degradation challenges in post-mining areas. This degradation often impedes vegetation growth, which is a critical issue our compost aims to resolve. Our research is directed not only at revitalizing the soil but also at enhancing its properties to support the sustainable rehabilitation of these areas.
The Pątnów II B mine is currently undergoing reclamation works in several directions: the creation of a water reservoir in the former Jóźwin IIB open-pit mine area, covering 438 hectares with a capacity of 220 million cubic meters, and efforts focused on agriculture and forestry. These initiatives mark a significant transition towards the sustainable use of post-mining landscapes.

Poltegor continues work on compost for soil reclamation – findings from laboratory studies

Poltegor-Instytut currently works on development of an innovative laboratory compost aimed at improving the rehabilitation processes for post-mining landscapes. This effort is an integral part of the REECOL project’s commitment to addressing soildegradation in post-mining areas.
The Institute’s recent work has involved detailed studies on the interactions between selected microorganisms for a composting vaccine. These studies are crucial to ensuring the composting process produces a clean, humus-rich, and biologically stable product that can enhance properties of soil by providing plants with accessible nutrients.
A significant aspect of this research was to identify and eliminate any potential antagonistic interactions among the strains in the multi-organism vaccine. Through biotic interaction tests, the Poltegor team found that most strains have neutral relationships, allowing to finalize the vaccine’s composition.
Why this matters? The goal of this compost is not only to rejuvenate the soil but also to improve its quality significantly, which is essential for the sustainable rehabilitation of mining-affected areas and the future development of local ecosystems.

Partners meet online to work on WP5

On 26.03.2024 an online meeting of project partners involved in WP5 ‘Short and long term monitoring of ecosystem rehabilitation’ took place. It was organized by BRGM, and representatives of the following partners participated: Poltegor-Instytut, Valorhiz, INERIS, GIG, VUHU, TUC, PPC S.A., Premogovnik Velenje. The following issues were discussed:
– methodology and indicators to be used in the project for monitoring of landrehabilitation at post-mining areas;
– sampling at testing sites; these sites are selected in post-mining areas.