Role of the different planting age of seabuckthorn forests to soil amelioration in coal mining subsidence land

To investigate the effects of seabuckthorn(Hippophae rhamnoides)on soil amelioration,using the space replacement method,soil physical and chemical indexes as well as the microorganism quantity and soil enzyme activities were analyzed.The results showed that:the soil bulk density of surface soil decreased and soil porosity and field capacity increased after afforestation with seabuckthorn.The plant was found to effectively reduce the soil pH,increase the soil conductivity,soil organic matters and available nutrients.Soil microorganism quantity,soil enzyme activities were both higher in 0-20 cm layer than in 20-40 cm layer.With the increase years of remediation with seabuckthorn,the quantity of soil microorganism and enzyme activities were increasing to a higher level 5 to 8 years later.Our study indicates that seabuckthorn can effectively improve soil physical and chemical properties,increase the quantity of soil microorganisms and enzyme activities,which is of great significance for the ecosystem restoration in mining areas.

Extracting mining subsidence land from remote sensing images based on domain knowledge

Extracting mining subsidence land from RS images is one of important research contents for environment monitoring in mining area. The accuracy of traditional extracting models based on spectral features is low. In order to extract subsidence land from RS images with high accuracy, some domain knowledge should be imported and new models should be proposed. This paper, in terms of the disadvantage of traditional extracting models, imports domain knowledge from practice and experience, converts semantic knowledge into digital information, and proposes a new model for the specific task. By selecting Luan mining area as study area, this new model is tested based on GIS and related knowledge. The result shows that the proposed method is more pre- cise than traditional methods and can satisfy the demands of land subsidence monitoring in mining area.

Sediment settlement rate and consolidation time of flling reclamation in coal mining subsidence land

With the continuous growth of the population and the continuous reduction of cultivated land,China’s food security is greatly threatened.In addition,China’s coal mining has been mainly underground mining,causing land subsidence and damaging existing cultivated land.This efect intensifes the contradiction between the growth of the risk population and the reduction of cultivated land.The reclamation of mining subsidence land with Yellow River sediment is often used as an efective way to improve the recovery rate of cultivated land.Shortening the reclamation time and realizing continuous flling are signifcant issues.The work presented in this paper studied the sediment settlement rate and consolidation time by combining theory,feld flling and reclamation tests and numerical simulations.A feld flling test study was carried out in the lowlands of Jibeiwang Village,Qihe County,Shandong Province,China.By calculating the drainage consolidation time,the consolidation factor of 0.015656 m^(2)/d,and the time factor for sediment consolidation of 0.575 were determined.The sediment consolidation time for this test was 9.18 days.The calculation of sediment deposition rate and consolidation time is of great practical signifcance to guide the Yellow River sediment flling,realize continuous flling,and save reclamation time and cost.

Assessment of several typical physical properties of reclaimed farmland filled with Yellow River sediment in Jining, China

Land subsidence caused by underground coal mining is one of the most prominent environment problems in China. The reclamation of mining subsidence land with Yellow River sediment was considered to be feasible, but its effectiveness needs to be verified. An integrated reclamation technology with Yellow River sediment was evaluated using a comparison of actual crop production soil profile analysis in Jining City, China. The results indicated that reconstructed soil profile of the reclaimed farmland was less effective in retaining water and in supporting plant growth than that of the unaltered farmland. Some measures are proposed, such as reducing the drainage velocity to allow sedimentation and retention of the clay and silt, changing the techniques of filling the Yellow River sediment and increasing the organic matter content in the soil layers to improve the capacity to retain water in the reclaimed farmland.

Pyrosequencing-based assessment of bacterial community structure in mine soils affected by mining subsidence

Based on the 454 pyrosequencing approach, this research evaluated the influence of coal mining subsi- dence on soil bacterial diversity and community structure in Chinese mining area. In order to characterize the bacterial community comparatively, this study selected a field experiment site with coal-excavated subsidence soils and an adjacent site with non-disturbed agricultural soils, respectively. The dataset com- prises 24512 sequences that are affiliated to the 7 phylogenetic groups： proteobacteria, actinobacteria, bacteroidetes, gemmatimonadetes, chlorofiexi, nitrospirae and unclassified phylum. Proteobacteria is the largest bacterial phylum in all samples, with a marked shift of the proportions of alpha-, beta-, and gammaproteobacteria. The results show that undisturbed soils are relatively more diverse and rich than subsided soils, and differences in abundances of dominant taxonomic groups between the two soil groups are visible. Compared with the control, soil nutrient contents decline achieves significant level in subsided soils. Correlational analysis showed bacterial diversity indices have significantly positive corre- lation with soil organic matter, total N, total P, and available K. but in negative relation with soil salinity. Ground subsidence noticeably affects the diversity and composition of soil microbial community. Degen- eration of soil fertility and soil salinization inhibits the sole-carbon-source metabolic ability of microbial community, leading to the simplification of advantage species and uneven distribution of microbial spe- cies. This work demonstrates the great potential of pyrosequencing technique in revealing microbial diversity and presents background information of microbial communities of mine subsidence land.

Ecological Restoration of Abandoned Mine Land in China

Mining activities produced a lot of abandoned mine land. This paper introduced the theoretical and technical progress of ecological restoration of surface coal mines, mining subsidence land and coal waste piles in China and discussed some key problems for research in the future. Ecological restoration of abandoned mine land was related to many disciplines, and multi-disciplinary theories might make great contributes to it. Some practical techniques of ecological restoration of abandoned mine land and their demonstration bases in China were introduced. Ecosystem succession process and mechanism, structure optimization of land use and new technologies of ecological restoration of abandoned mine land should be focused on in research activities.