288 / 2023-10-10 17:04:14

Ecological Restoration Outcomes in Mining Areas: Evaluating Success against the New SER Standards

Ecological restoration, Ecosystem attribute, Mine site restoration, Monitoring, Mine regulation

Mine restoration projects aim to restore previously degraded mine ecosystems, but a lack of common indicators for restoration success hinders our understanding of the ecological outcomes. This study conducts a systematic review and meta-analysis of peer-reviewed literature on the success of mine site restoration. The objectives are to identify trends in monitoring indicators following the New SER Guidance and to assess the overall impact of restoration on degraded ecosystems compared to reference ecosystems. We found that restoration success was assessed mostly through the combination of ecosystem functions and physical conditions outcomes of restoration. Success is influenced by multi-factors such as restoration age, natural conditions, reference objectives and restoration methods, with time being a key facilitator. The effect is not to reference despite 50 years or a long time, but better than pre-restoration. The restoration is positive on vegetation and soil, but less clear on fauna. While the SER principles are widely cited, they are not consistently applied due to cost, time, and target ambiguity. Overall, our findings could provide a resilience-driven restoration design based on the world’s first standards for mine restoration, and improve it in practice.