Alves, M.Q.; Assis, I.R. de; Neves, J.C.L.; Oliveira, F.Z.; Anunciação, A. de A.; Moreira, S.L.S.; Stewart, R.D. Recovery Quality Index as a Tool for Monitoring the Mined Land Reclamation. Ecological Indicators 2024, 159, 111716, doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.111716.
Alves, M.Q.; Assis, I.R. de; Neves, J.C.L.; Oliveira, F.Z.; Anunciação, A. de A.; Moreira, S.L.S.; Stewart, R.D. Recovery Quality Index as a Tool for Monitoring the Mined Land Reclamation. Ecological Indicators 2024, 159, 111716, doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.111716.
Alves, M.Q.; Assis, I.R. de; Neves, J.C.L.; Oliveira, F.Z.; Anunciação, A. de A.; Moreira, S.L.S.; Stewart, R.D. Recovery Quality Index as a Tool for Monitoring the Mined Land Reclamation. Ecological Indicators 2024, 159, 111716, doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.111716.
Alves, M.Q.; Assis, I.R. de; Neves, J.C.L.; Oliveira, F.Z.; Anunciação, A. de A.; Moreira, S.L.S.; Stewart, R.D. Recovery Quality Index as a Tool for Monitoring the Mined Land Reclamation. Ecological Indicators 2024, 159, 111716, doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.111716.
Abstract
Many ecosystems are being severely degraded, leading the United Nations to deem 2021-2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. To be successful, this effort requires robust monitoring tools to assess land reclamation practices. Our study aimed to evaluate the quality of recovery efforts in mined areas by developing a Recovery Quality Index (RQI) based on soil and vegetation indicators. Using the heavily mined Iron Quadrangle region of Brazil as an example, we selected four local, undisturbed reference areas as restoration goals: Atlantic Forest (AF); ferruginous rupestrian grassland with dense vegetation (FRGD); ferruginous rupestrian grassland with sparse vegetation (FRGS); and quartzite rupestrian grassland (QRG). We also selected four areas that were directly or indirectly affected by mining, including an environmental compensation area set aside 5 years prior to the study (COMP-5), two sterile piles that had undergone recovery for 15 and 20 years (SP-20 and SP-15), and a cave area with 15 years of recovery (CAVE-15). The four recovery areas were grouped together with each individual reference area (making four combinations of sites), and measurements of 2 vegetation parameters and 34 soil attributes were used in a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for each grouping. We determined the RQI for each group by summing weighted PCA scores for responsive indicators. Vegetative parameters had the lowest RQI weights in all four groups. Soil physical indicators tended to be the most important, except in AF, where chemical indicators were most relevant. RQI values were also lowest when AF was used as the reference, showing that the forest was a unique ecosystem, and the CAVE-15 site had lower RQI scores than the other restored sites, indicating the high degree of disturbance that occurred in that low-lying area. The SP-20 site tended to have higher RQI values than the SP-15, and similar values to the less disturbed COMP-5 areas, potentially indicating greater recovery of native soil properties during the longer recovery period. This RQI-based approach has excellent potential for robust assessment of the recovery of areas degraded by mining and can support decision-making during monitoring.
Keywords
soil indicators; vegetation indicators; iron mining; ecological restoration
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Soil Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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