Assessing the development of rehabilitated grasslands on post-mined landforms in north west Queensland, Australia

Vickers, H.; Gillespie, Melina; Gravina, A. J.

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2012.05.024

Cited by 45 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…If vegetation variables were measured at these mines, large datasets for modeling a variety of restoration responses of interest (e.g., species richness, weed abundances) could be assembled rather quickly. Other dryland systems with data sufficient to support analyses similar to ours include degraded Great Basin, USA, rangelands (Eiswerth et al 2009) and likely mined grasslands of Australia (Vickers et al 2012) and Europe (Tischew et al 2014).…”

Section: Bayesian Adaptive Restoration Managementsupporting

confidence: 71%

High precipitation and seeded species competition reduce seeded shrub establishment during dryland restoration

Rinella

Hammond

Bryant

et al. 2015

Ecological Applications

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Drylands comprise 40% of Earth's land mass and are critical to food security, carbon sequestration, and threatened and endangered wildlife. Exotic weed invasions, overgrazing, energy extraction, and other factors have degraded many drylands, and this has placed an increased emphasis on dryland restoration. The increased restoration focus has generated a wealth of experience, innovations and empirical data, yet the goal of restoring diverse, native, dryland plant assemblages composed of grasses, forbs, and shrubs has generally proven beyond reach. Of particular concern are shrubs, which often fail to establish or establish at trivially low densities. We used data from two Great Plains, USA coal mines to explore factors regulating shrub establishment. Our predictor data related to weather and restoration (e.g., seed rates, rock cover) variables, and our response data described shrub abundances on fields of the mines. We found that seeded non-shrubs, especially grasses, formed an important competitive barrier to shrub establishment: With every one standard deviation increase in non-shrub seed rate, the probability shrubs were present decreased ~0.1 and shrub cover decreased ~35%. Since new fields were seeded almost every year for > 20 years, the data also provided a unique opportunity to explore effects of stochastic drivers (i.e., precipitation, year effects). With every one standard deviation increase in precipitation the first growing season following seeding, the probability shrubs were present decreased ~0.07 and shrub cover decreased ~47%. High precipitation appeared to harm shrubs by increasing grass growth/competition. Also, weak evidence suggested shrub establishment was better in rockier fields where grass abundance/competition was lower. Multiple lines of evidence suggest reducing grass seed rates below levels typically used in Great Plains restoration would benefit shrubs without substantially impacting grass stand development over the long term. We used Bayesian statistics to estimate effects of seed rates and other restoration predictors probabilistically to allow knowledge of the predictors' effects to be refined through time in an adaptive management framework. We believe this framework could improve restoration planning in a variety of systems where restoration outcomes remain highly uncertain and ongoing restoration efforts are continually providing new data of value for reducing the uncertainty.

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Section: Bayesian Adaptive Restoration Managementsupporting

confidence: 71%

High precipitation and seeded species competition reduce seeded shrub establishment during dryland restoration

Rinella

Hammond

Bryant

et al. 2015

Ecological Applications

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“…While mining is an important contemporary component of the Australian economy, it is also a temporary land-use and the rehabilitation of mined land to its pre-disturbance state is a part of the mining industries social licence to operate (Burton et al, 2012;Doley and Audet, 2013;Maczkowiack et al, 2012;Worrall et al, 2009). While the rehabilitation of land with native vegetation is a condition imposed on most new mines, it is a difficult task and is often met with limited success (Bell, 2001;Maczkowiack et al, 2012;Vickers et al, 2012). In the northern state of Queensland, mining companies must achieve pre-determined rehabilitation success criteria before their legal liability for land can end.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Algal biochar enhances the re-vegetation of stockpiled mine soils with native grass

Roberts¹,

Cole²,

Paul³

et al. 2015

Journal of Environmental Management

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“…As noted earlier, promising results have been achieved at some sites and successional trajectories appear to be on track to restoring original ecosystems (e.g. Koch & Hobbs 2007;Vickers et al 2012). In other cases diverse plant communities dominated by native species have been established although the future successional trajectories of these communities are still unclear (e.g.…”

Section: Some Biophysical Impediments To Mine Site Rehabilitationmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…However, there is accumulating evidence that promising outcomes are possible, including at some former mine sites where rehabilitation is scientifically based and operationally embraced (Koch & Hobbs 2007;Benayas et al 2009;Suding 2011;Vickers et al 2012;De Groot et al 2013).…”

Section: Common Approaches To Rehabilitation Following Miningmentioning

confidence: 98%

Widening gap between expectations and practice in Australian minesite rehabilitation

Lamb¹,

Erskine²,

Fletcher³

2015

Eco Management Restoration

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Tel: +61 7 3346 4065). Andrew Fletcher is a member of the Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation at the University Summary The basic methods for rehabilitating degraded land left after mining are reasonably well-understood and there are examples across Australia of these being currently implemented.But there are many other situations where further research will be needed to achieve rehabilitation objectives. In addition, a number of mines are yet to embark on any sustained program of rehabilitation and there is a disappointing number of cases of mines ceasing operations before rehabilitation is completed leaving sites in a badly degraded state. Overall there appear to be surprisingly few examples in Australia of postmining rehabilitation that has reached a successful conclusion. In part, this may be simply a matter of time and the problem will be resolved as more mines reach the end of their working lives. But there is an apparent trend for mines to be placed into 'care and maintenance' or sold to other entities, to avoid the costs of rehabilitation. Thus, we are concerned there is a widening gap between what should be possible and what is being done in practice. We review some of the experiences of rehabilitating post-mining landscapes in Australia and conclude that problems have arisen because of (i) the inherently difficult task of restoring ecosystems at highly modified mine sites, (ii) institutional and management weaknesses and (iii) loose regulatory frameworks that allow a high level of company self-regulation. A key problem is that the importance of rehabilitation appears to rank below that of production in the minds of many mine managers and is not accorded the level of priority that the community expects. The scale of the mining industry and its capacity to cause environmental damage means that there is a need to improve the way mine rehabilitation is currently undertaken. We suggest that this might be achieved by improving research programs as well as better institutional and regulatory arrangements. The present situation represents a major ecological and financial risk to the nation as a whole and regulatory authorities need to develop more rigorous approaches to ensure effective rehabilitation standards are achieved.

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Assessing the development of rehabilitated grasslands on post-mined landforms in north west Queensland, Australia

Cited by 45 publications

References 36 publications

High precipitation and seeded species competition reduce seeded shrub establishment during dryland restoration

High precipitation and seeded species competition reduce seeded shrub establishment during dryland restoration

Algal biochar enhances the re-vegetation of stockpiled mine soils with native grass

Widening gap between expectations and practice in Australian minesite rehabilitation

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