Assessment of ecological restoration success and vegetation dynamics through spatial-temporal change detection in Gevra opencast mine, Korba coalfield, India

Abstract

Mining activity causes a huge amount of land degradation by altering the land use pattern of the area. It is extremely difficult to restore and reclaim this degraded land because of the unfavourable Physico-Chemical conditions for plant growth. The purpose of the present study was the monitoring of land use and land cover, diversity and species composition of Gevra Opencast (OC) Mine of Korba Coalfield, Chhattisgarh and assessment of restoration success over the period of time. A phytosociological survey has been accompanied and a random quadrate sampling method was adopted for vegetation analysis and the change in vegetation cover was observed using Arc GIS software. The finding show that the area comprises 48 tree species with the Shannon-wiener index (H¢), Concentration of Dominance (D) (Simpson’s index) Species Evenness (E) and species richness (R) were 2.72, 0.127, 0.70 and 6.38 respectively. A comparative analysis of land use and land cover based on data from 2001 and 2021 reveals that the degradation of agricultural land is caused by increased mining activities while similar efforts were made to restore the mine soil dump areas. NDVI value of the study site helps in monitoring the vegetation cover over a period which can be used as a monitoring tool for maintaining restoration success.