Ecological Restoration

Ecological restoration of degraded mine out areas: A tool to mitigate negative Impacts of mining

There are several definitions of ecological restoration because of researcher defined it according to their areas of interest and priorities (Sweeney, 2000).The most globally accepted and relevant definition given by Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) in 2004.According to SER (2004), eco-restoration is defined as “an intentional activity that initiates or accelerates the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity and sustainability and attempts to accelerate the natural recovery process artificially to achieve the otherwise long term goals in a short time” (SER,2002, 2004; Rajdeep et al., 2011). Ecological restoration

Organic matter including cow dung manure also increases colonization and stabilization of micro flora and micro fauna, improving soil texture enzyme activities and nitrification. The organic matter which includes Organic residuals, such as biosolids, sewage effluents, composts, animal wastes and food wastes etc are commonly very rich in carbon sources, microbes and essential plant nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Read and Neath, (2005a,b) demonstrated that addition of organic matter to soil reduced problem related soil depth, fertility, structure and water holding capacity. The duration of time period in which this amendment support soil productivities varies in following order, compost>sewage sludge>fertilizer (Wilden et al. 1991; Wilden et al. 2001).Composting also improved plant cover and biomass of native seeded grasses(Noyd et al. 1995a; Noyd et al. 1996)metals. In addition, organic amendments such as manures were successul to immobilise Zn, Cd, and Pb in a metal- contaminated alluvial soil(Pierzynski and Schwab,

If evaluation trends lead towards the reference condition than it confirm that the restoration is following its intended trajectory..Three strategy suggested by SER primer on ecological restoration (2004), (i)direct comparison, (ii)attribute analysis and(iii) trajectory analysis. In direct comparison, selected parameters (up to 30) including biota and environmental factor are monitored or measured in the reference sites and restoration sites. At some occasion direct comparison could create ambiguity in interpretation of result when some of comparisons are close and others are no. In attribute analysis, attributes are assessed by quantitative and semi-quantitative data from scheduled monitoring and other inventories .Trajectory analysis is still developing and considered as very promising strategy based on interpretation of large large sets of comparative data generated at restoration sites and plotted to established trend . In plant community recovery process species richness has been widely used as an indicator of restoration efficiency (Willems 2001; Lindborg & Eriksson 2004; Cristofoli et al. 2009). Temporal measurements of vegetation cover at restoration areas can provide inferences of ecosystem function (Clewell and Aronson 2007).Various environment factor like pH, SOM and others biochemical used be good indicator of