The importance and future challenges of ecological restoration of abandoned coalmine degraded lands: an Indian scenario

摘要

Ecological restoration is an important aspect to recover the ecosystem structures and functions of coal mines degraded land. In India restoration practices must emphasize on the multidimensional approach to restore the ecosystem, which is self-sustainable and capable to support environmental interactions and ecosystem changes. With the rapid expansion of population, utilization of the resources, like energy, land use and fresh water increased to match the demand and supply ratio. Since, coal is a valuable resource of energy, its extraction by surface mining causes ecosystem disturbance. At the same time, it is mandatory to manage our restoration efforts to achieve economics of the time, energy and cost. This paper introduced the importance, theoretical and practical progress, and discussed some key problems for research in the future of ecological restoration of surface coal mines in India.