Ecological restoration of mines based on Nature-based Solution: a review

Abstract

At present, the construction of ecological civilisation and the goal of carbon neutrality have become national strategies, which require the ecological restoration of mines to develop in a green, coordinated and sustainable direction.The integration of Nature-based Solution (NbS) concepts and methods into mine ecological restoration is of great guiding significance.But, at present, there is a lack of theoretical methods and realization paths for nature-based ecological rehabilitation of mines.Therefore, the conceptual connotation and related concepts of NbS in mine ecological restoration are systematically sorted out, the potential applications of NbS in various aspects of mine ecological restoration, such as “geomorphic remodelling-soil reconstruction-vegetation reconstruction-landscape recreation-biodiversity restructuring and conservation” are summarized, the challenges and principles of mine ecological restoration in the era of NbS and carbon neutrality are aligned, the ecosystem service functions of mines based on NbS are analysed, and a pathway of realizing the potential ecological restoration of mines in China with NbS is proposed.The results of the study found that for the scientific connotation of NbS in mine ecological restoration under the carbon neutral vision, the restoration concepts of natural restoration, near-natural restoration, nature-imitating restoration, and natural restoration as the main and artificial restoration as the supplement belong to the current mine NbS.And NbS, carbon neutralisation, and mine ecological restoration have an important coupling relationship.The NbS guidelines are compatible with the application of the principles of mine ecological restoration under a carbon-neutral vision, and mine ecological restoration incorporating NbS can help to achieve carbon neutrality. In addition, NbS is an effective solution to the core problem of ecological rehabilitation of mines.The use of NbS for mine ecological restoration is the optimisation of previous restoration concepts and methods, NbS effectively optimises the geomorphological remodelling and soil reconstruction methods in mine ecological restoration, which is better than the traditional methods in terms of soil resistance to water erosion, sustainable stability, and visual effect, and is closer to the original geomorphology, and the vegetation reconstruction method that combines natural and man-made methods promotes the ecological succession in the mining area, improves the stability of the landscape and facilitates the development of biodiversity management, so as to achieve the goal of enhancing the ecosystem function of the mines and the realization of the ecological and sustainable development of the mines.In the future research, it should be further combined with the complex ecological environment of mines, and actively explore the implementation path of ecological restoration of NbS in mines.At the same time, the development of cost-benefit accounting models for NbS should be strengthened, with a view to achieving a steady increase in the comprehensive benefits of “socio-economic-ecological” in the context of sustainable development.

Keywords

• nature-based solution
• mine ecological restoration
• ecosystem services
• biodiversity
• carbon neutrality