• Czech Coal Group
• Czech Coal a.s.
• Vršanská uhelná a.s.
• Litvínovská uhelná a.s.
• Dceřiné společnosti

Reclamation – principle and history

Reclamation of the Areas Affected by Brown Coal Extraction

Reclamation of areas affected by brown coal extraction is a long process, characterised by a high technical and biological complexity. Reclamation in northern Bohemia has a century-old tradition and has undergone various stages of development and various implementation approaches.

A reclaimed landscape is not only the outcome of specific efforts but also, in particular, the outcome of legislative conditions, application of know-how and, last but not least, sufficient funding. Knowledge of the development of reclamation, the basic legislative conditions, stakeholder participation and the technical and biological processes is essential to rectify the impacts of mining and create a new definitive landscape.

History of Reclamation and a Brief Outline of the Development of the “Czech Reclamation School”

The Austro-Hungarian Mining Law of 1852 contained provisions imposing the obligation on mining companies to ensure that the land affected by their mining operations could be returned to its initial use. The methods of repairing the mining damage were also defined. In northern Bohemia, the first organised project of regeneration of the land affected by coal extraction was carried out in 1908 under the supervision of the Reclamation Agency of the Czech Land Council for Agriculture. The area of land recorded as reclaimed was 448 hectares.

Planned development of reclamation activities in the North Bohemian Brown Coal District took place at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century. At the end of 1951, SHD (North Bohemian Brown Coal Mines) set up a Reclamation Department within its agricultural establishment in Teplice. The organisation was partially reshaped in 1957 and the SDH established a Farming and Reclamation Unit in Teplice, which was transferred to the Supporting Production Unit of the SHD Báňské stavby Most National Enterprise in Teplice in 1958. A series of organisational changes followed. The beginnings of the “Czech Reclamation School” date back to the postwar period (1952) when the reclamation started developing on a systematic basis and when the first Reclamation Master Plan was developed (in 1958 –1960). This plan was fairly advanced for its time, and was systematically updated to reflect the latest findings. It has remained a conceptual policy document for reclamation work to this day. It is the world’s unique strategy document of its time.

For the current European concept of the remediation of the consequences of mining operations, the Czech approach was a guidebook for landscape regeneration in the early 1990s. Socio-economic changes, including the changes made to the Czech legislation, have also brought about a number of creative approaches in the reclamation area. In many countries with coal and other mineral extraction, the results and experience of Czech specialists served as a basis for the formulation of landscape regeneration principles and preparation of reclamation projects. Experience sharing among advanced coal mining countries in Europe supports the current trend of convergence of reclamation styles.

Key Issues Addressed by Reclamation

Mining affects all landscape features and all basic constituents of the landscape within the lithosphere, hydrosphere, troposphere, pedosphere and biosphere, and all constituents of the social environment, with limitations on residential and industrial construction and technical infrastructure. Reclamation of the areas affected by mining operations restores the landscape to its function. New bio-centres and bio-corridors develop in the places that were devastated by mining and the territory is being integrated into the initial landscape. Issues related to the filling of surface mine residual holes are being addressed. The traditional reclamation tasks include regeneration or formation of farm land and crops, forest stands, water bodies and watercourses, as well as recreational and commercial areas.

Differences in Reclamation after Deep and Surface Mining

Underground mining causes subsidence or local depressions of the existing surface of the earth, i.e. a partial deformation of the landscape relief. The surface of a part of the terrain sinks under the groundwater table and the altitude of the site changes. Reclamation of the subsidence troughs or depressions in the affected areas is aimed at restoring the disrupted ecosystem in accordance with natural principles and the requirements of public administration. Surface mining involves an intervention in the structure of the Earth’s crust within the mine. Large quantities of mass are displaced in the extraction area and inner and external dumps are built. A new configuration of the terrain develops and the nature of the bedrock environment changes. The purpose of reclamation in such areas is to restore the area to its productive use through a combination of clean-up and reclamation work of both technical and biological nature.

Reclamation Problems Brought about by the Approval of Mining Limits in 1991

Due to the adoption of the mining limits (Government Resolution No. 444/1991), the approach to the final landscaping solution in the area affected by mining was constrained by the change in the overall extent of the initially envisaged plans. Compromises must be sought for the reclamation of the area. The formation of the landscape configuration requires more complex solutions, often using costlier clean-up, technical and biological reclamation technologies. There is a deficit of material caused by the limitations on mining. The problems of the demanding coordination of the landscaping and technical solutions involved in the reclamation of the ČSA surface mine are an example.

Reclamation Types from the Landscaping Perspective

Regeneration of an area after mining with a suitable arrangement of the landscape features, using different types of reclamation, is based on the landscaping solutions in the summary clean-up and reclamation plan. The approach to work of technical and biological nature within the reclamation process depends on the basic types of reclamation. These are as follows:

1. Agricultural reclamation – the use of this type of reclamation is based on the Act on Protection of the Agricultural Land Fund and on the obligation to strip and store the cultivated surface layers of the soil. The technological process of agricultural reclamation depends on the desired outcome: whether there is to be an arable area or grassland (meadow or pasture) or any other type of agricultural reclamation. The reclamation crop rotation practices are applied for a period of 2 to 6 years.
2. Afforestation – this type of reclamation is a priority where the many specific protective functions of forests are desired. Its implementation has two major stages: the preparation stage, including planting (1 to 3 years), and the cultivation stage (6 to 8 years). The trees/shrubs that are used for reclamation include an approved mix of endemic species and also species suitable for the slopes in the area being reclaimed.
3. Hydrological reclamation – this involves the formation of a new water regime in the reclaimed landscape, based on construction and technical measures. Smaller-scale hydrological reclamation projects include, for example, trenches, various types of drains and retention reservoirs that regulate water runoff and intercept the erosion sediment. The local waterfilled depressions are respected as stabilising environmental features in the landscape. Larger water bodies are created in the flooded residual pits or large depressions and serve for the purposes of suburban recreation and other functional uses.
4. Other reclamations – functional and recreational greenery. Unlike conventional agricultural reclamation or afforestation, this approach uses scattered greenery, which is one of important landscaping features. The purpose is to develop parks, engineered landscapes or suburban greenery, to include recreational and sports grounds in the landscape, to cultivate the areas surrounding industrial premises, dumps etc. Riparian greenery along water streams and in the littoral zones around the lakes in the flooded residual pits is an important landscape feature. Roadside tree planting, groves in fields, bushes on spoil bank slopes exposed to erosion, etc. are also designed for reclaimed landscape. The appropriate use of the areas that have reached various degrees of succession, which is regarded as part of the reclamation processes enhancing the natural variety and natural character of the new land, is also important.

Reclamation Project Approval Process

Reclamation is the final stage of mining activities under the provisions of Act No. 44/1988 on the Protection and Utilisation of Mineral Resources. The clean-up and reclamation projects are considered in several stages, which follow one after the other. The key documents must be approved before the extraction work is commenced. The Development and Working Face Advance Plan (DWAP) must be approved first. Natural persons and legal entities involved, and state administration authorities take part in the approval process where their interests are affected by the utilisation of a reserved deposit – the final reclamation stage. The documents that must be approved are as follows:

1. Summary Clean-up and Reclamation Plan (SCRP). This plan addresses the landscaping efforts in their entirety, applying to the area as a whole as well as the individual features and structures, including the basic economic aspects. The SCRP is the basic conceptual material for removing the consequences of mining with projection until the end of the life of the surface mine. Having been considered by the public administration bodies (Planning Departments, Environmental Departments, Ministry of the Environment, etc.), by the local self-government authorities and by the Czech Mining Office, the SCRP is included, for the respective period of time, in the DWAP.
2. Clean-up and Reclamation Plan – its general part, based on the SCRP, is attached to the application for exclusion of the land from agricultural use and for exclusion from the land intended to fulfill the functions of forest, and is discussed with the respective agencies of the Ministry of the Environment and other authorities concerned.
3. Clean-up and Reclamation Plan (DWAP, Section 1.6) for the validity period of the individual sites’ DWAP plans. It is approved by the Mining Office upon approval by the Ministry of the Environment, municipalities and the public administration bodies concerned. Approval of the DWAP also depends, among other things, on environmental impact assessment under Act No. 100/2001. An approved DWAP is an essential precondition for any mining operation as such. The above documentation must be prepared and deliberated before the commencement of mining as such. Further details of the reclamation process are determined during the course of mining.
4. The Specific Reclamation Plan (reclamation master plan) specifies the details of clean-up and reclamation for a five-year period in more detail. It is based on the SCRP, serves as a source of information for project documentation, and contains an overview of the reclamation projects that are being commenced, those that are under way and those that are being finished. Once it is agreed with the environmental public administration and planning bodies, it is obligatory for the mining company.
5. Clean-up and reclamation project documentation (execution designs) for the implementation period – documentation required by the Building Act for the planning procedure, building permit procedure and water management procedure in accordance with the regulations in force – agreed with the landowners and public administration authorities (the Planning Authority) and self-government authorities concerned.

Relationship between Reclamation and Planning

As part of the DWAP documentation, the Summary Clean-up and Reclamation Plans for the area affected by the extraction of a reserved deposit are strategic documents. They reflect the planning documentation. Their compliance with the latter and the affirmative opinions of the respective state administration authorities, municipalities, regional environmental departments and planning departments are binding preconditions for permitting the mining operations. There must be ongoing interactions between the Summary Clean-up and Reclamation Plans as well as the reclamation plans (including reclamation documentation) and the planning documentation.

Caring for Biodiversity and Original Vegetation Cover

Biodiversity remains a part of the integrated solution of the issues under the SCRP until the consequences of mining operations in the affected area are remedied. The SCRP provides a conceptual framework for the formation and protection of the constituent systems of the environmental stability of the area (the area SES). The SCRP provides a local solution derived from the area SES master plans that apply to the surrounding areas and from the area SES-related technical documents concerning areas at and above the regional level in the Czech Republic. The formation of local ecological corridors and centres, including the biodiversity of the area, constitutes a part of the SCRP and subsequent projects.

1. Temporary reclamation – system of technical and biotechnical work not providing a permanent solution to the formation of the landscape: its purpose is to bridge the period until the area is affected by mining operations again (extraction, transfer of material, etc.). Temporary reclamation mitigates the adverse impacts of mining by applying simplified reclamation solutions. Reclamation of a part of the Slatinice dump, reclamation of the Kopisty dump, Albrechtice dump and other such projects can be mentioned as examples.
2. Controlled succession – former mining areas where natural succession has continued for a longer period of time may develop into important landscape features in some cases. If the valuable vegetation cover (herbs, shrubs and trees) is respected as the core feature and if the specific site conditions are supported, then it is possible, using a suitable additional reclamation process, to maintain the natural vegetation, including the new features, and to create preconditions for their expansion. Examples include the areas identified in certain parts of the slopes of the Ryzel hill and the western edge of the Slatinice dump, the Pařidla lobe of the former Ležáky surface mine and other similar sites.
3. Conventional reclamation process – an all-round technological solution to the mining and environmental technical stages, including work such as ground shaping, stabilization measures, basic soil improvement measures, hydrotechnical measures and decisions on the biotechnical type of reclamation (agricultural reclamation, afforestation, hydrologic reclamation, and others) with the selection of a suitable bio-cycle of cultivation. Most of the areas affected by the surface mining activities of the Czech Coal Group as well as its predecessors in the past can be mentioned as examples.

Sources of Reclamation Funding (financial provisions, direct costs, other sources – subsidies etc.)

Act No. 44/1988, on the Protection and Utilisation of Mineral Resources, as amended, imposes on mining organisations to ensure that all the land affected by mining is cleaned up and reclaimed. Clean-up means the removal of landscape damage through an all-round restoration of the area and all the structures in it. Mining organisations must maintain financial provisions for clean-up and reclamation. The use of funds from these provisions is governed by Section 37 a Subsection 2 of Act No. 168/93.

A part of the work is financed from other funding resources, including the government’s funds for the removal of the damage of the past, as set out in Government Resolution No. 242/2002. The projects that meet the conditions of the Inter-ministerial Commission’s request for proposals for the removal of past damage are financed, upon approval, by government funds. A supervisor overseeing the reclamation projects represents the government’s interests. The mining organization incurs direct costs in the clean-up and reclamation projects to remove the damage caused to the landscape affected by the extraction of unreserved minerals.

Development of Expertise for Reclamation Method Selection

The development of reclamation approaches reflects the gradually gained experience and the results of research into the possibilities of varying technical and biotechnical work in the reclamation process. There was no experience in this area when the reclamation efforts commenced (after 1951) and this affected the outcomes of the first reclamation projects. At the beginning, reclamation was only focused on the restoration of agricultural land in the depressions left after underground mining. Then the focus was gradually shifted to reclamation through the cultivation of mine dumps – they were afforested, using primarily the pioneer wood species, including alder, poplar, black locust and some others.

The year 1956 was a landmark year. The topsoil from the areas in front of the mine face began to be stored. The saved soil was then spread over the closed mine dumps where fertile fields and fruit orchards developed and later also vineyards. The target wood species began to be included in the afforestation programmes, including maple, ash and others. However, the reclamation concept was still a matter of random selection at that time. Later on, at the end of the 1950s, when surface mining affected larger areas, the Reclamation Master Plan was prepared.

The change in the political system in the 1990s brought about a new conception of reclamation. The Czech Coal Group’s current approach to the reclamation process is aimed at enriching the territory with new landscape features with a modified relief, with newly shaped landscape components and with opportunities to develop new links in the environmental and social spheres. The reclamation strategy is based on well-proven experience and research findings concerning new, different approaches to the technology of the biological work. Model processes of reclamation work are determined using methods developed for practical application by a research institute, which used the assessment of the results of its observations as the basis. Much attention is paid to soil research and to the technology of erosion control and soil improvement measures.

Afforestation, which is a priority because of the specific protective functions of forest in the system of maintaining a natural balance, focuses on the planting of endemic species with stronger growth vigour, including English oak, durmast oak, small-leaf linden, sycamore maple, Norway maple and others. The methods of agricultural biological reclamation, i.e. the crop rotation systems, were modified to meet the priority requirement: soil formation. The extent to which agricultural reclamation is practised reflects the statutory obligation to protect the agricultural land fund, using the stripped and stored topsoil. In some cases, land is left to the natural development of succession as part of the other reclamation methods on the basis of assessment.

The societal demand for the future utilisation of the affected areas is of key importance at present, particularly in the reclamation work performed under specific projects.

Progress and completion of reclamation

The purpose of reclamation is to remedy the consequences of quarrying and deep mining and to restore the landscape to productive socio-economic use. The objective of the final stage of mining – clean up and reclamation work, is to rehabilitate the functions of the systems that have been affected, i.e., in particular the recovery of soil and water systems and restoration of greenery so that the new ecosystem can function in a comprehensive way in landscape featuring a new topography.

Ultimately, this also means reclassification of the land in terms of its use, from “mining” (WD – working district) to a different category of land, in the land register in accordance with the target of reclamation and the new way of use. The remedial concept and the type of reclamation are also addressed in the context of the future cultures to be created on the land, and registration in the land register. In relation to the reclamation objectives, the officially registered change of land use is carried out following the completion of reclamation, specifically from the use “for mining” to the respective cultures emerging from the reclamation process.

Reclamation is carried out under legislative decisions. This means that during the relevant statutory procedures, the proposed reclamation project is consulted with the landowners and the competent state administration authorities and local (municipal) governments. The technological procedures employed in reclamation are based on the methodology that has been well tested for practice in long-term research and practical application. It contains the basic rules for the performance of the work related to reclamation. The purpose is to carry out the reclamation process at a high level of quality and economically and efficiently to achieve the secure existence of the target culture (forest, farming, water, or other). The continuous assessment of the progress of work and the final approval take place with the participation of the state administration authorities responsible for environmental protection.

Clean up and reclamation are deemed completed upon the approval granted by the state administration authority responsible for environmental protection. Consent to the ending of the reclamation work is issued; in addition to the decision on the change of the use of land, this consent is the basic document for changing the culture in the land register and the termination of the payment of charges for occupying land designated as LDFF (land designated to function as forest) and ALF (Agricultural Land Fund). Following the completion of clean up and reclamation, the areas of completed reclamation are delivered to the landowners who exercise management of the area.

Major completed reclamation projects

The Velebudice dump (800 hectares) - the issue of the complete utilisation of the area through the reclamation process was addressed as an architectural whole. At present, the area serves as a suburban recreational area for the town of Most. The horse-racing stadium (hippodrome) is its dominant part. It has a turf surface, hedge hurdles, grass-covered tribunes etc. and is managed by a Czech Coal Group subsidiary, HIPODROM MOST a.s. There is also a golf course on the reclaimed dump and some of its parts were reclaimed for farm and forestry use.

The Autodrom car racing circuit and the 40-hectare Matylda water reservoir were built in the area of the former Vrbenský surface mine. The reclaimed area is 500 hectares in size and includes a group of reclamation structures for short-term recreation, including a circuit for automobile races, which have a long-established tradition in the Most region. The circuit, which was put to use in 1982, is 4,148 metres long and 12 metres wide. The Matylda lake, also built in 1992, has a beach and a park and offers opportunities for swimming and water sports. A track for recreational in-line skaters was built around the lake in 2008.

Important reclamation projects also include the reclamation of large external dumps. Since 1995, overburden from the Czech Coal Group mining sites has only been dumped in the depleted areas, and internal dumps are being built. The extensive reclamation of the external dumps was in its final stage of completion in 2010. Afforestation predominates in the reclamation projects that have been completed on a total area of more than 4,000 hectares of the external dumps. The total area reclaimed by agricultural methods reflects the availability of the stripped topsoil at the sites accessible for future agro-technical use. The landscaping reclamation of the dumps near the residential areas of the town of Most partly takes the form of functional and recreational greenery, including the basic road system and water areas and the completion of the water management system. At present, the extensive areas of revegetated land are as valuable as the pre-mining areas.