Recent Articles- IJES

A study on the Bulk density and its effect on the growth of selected grasses in coal mine overburden dumps, Jharkhand, India
Author(s)- Arvind Kumar Rai, Biswajit Paul, Gurdeep Singh

ABSTRACT

Coal is the prime source of energy in India. Opencast mining of coal damage a large land surface area, displace people from their natural home and cause agricultural losses. This raises a number of environmental challenges, including soil erosion, dust, noise, and water pollution impacts on local biodiversity. Generation of dump waste from opencast mines in Jharia coalfield threatens the social sustainability of land use pattern in many ways. The overburden dumps formed outside the open pits besides occupying the lands alter the surface topography and contribute to the environmental degradation. In the present paper authors have attempted to study the impact of physical properties of soil and his effect on the growth of some selected grasses over mine dumps. Bulk density plays a significant role in growth of selected grasses as observed during this experiment.

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Recent Articles-IJES-Role of Soil Physical Properties in Ecological Succession of Restored Mine Land – A Case Study

ABSTRACT

Minerals are the gift of nature which occurs either in thick forest areas or adjacent to it. During the course of mining, vegetation/forest gets destroyed and gets replaced by huge quantities of overburden dumps. Restoration of these dumps becomes necessary so that the land may come back to its original topography. Soil has the significant role in restoration process. Present paper focuses on how the physical characteristics of soil affect the restoration intervention in a derelict mined land. The study was carried out with an objective of evaluating the role of soil physical properties in ecological succession of an age series of 23, 22, 21 and 20 years old restored mine sites in Dehradun district, Uttarakhand, India. Adjoining natural forest was also studied for comparison of some selected soil physical properties (texture, porosity, electrical conductivity, bulk density). Data of the present investigation reveals that as the physical properties of soil improve with age of bio-restoration, the successional processes also advance culminating into successful restoration of mine derelict sites. The results of the present study will be helpful in further understanding the successional processes and how soil properties play significant role in successional processes.

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