Assessing the naturalness of a restored coal mine area on the Loess Plateau, China.

ABSTRACT: The Loess Plateau in China is an important area for mineral resources and therefore heavily exploited. As a measure to solve the conflict between conservation and development, ecological restoration has attracted more and more attention. More methods are needed to assess their effectiveness in achieving ecological and social goals. To adequately assess the effectiveness of natural restoration, the naturalness index (NI) has been developed to evaluate restoration effectiveness based on the Soil nutrient index (SNI), community composition index (CCI), and community succession index (CSI). By developing and applying of the NI to an open-pit mining area on Loess plateau, northwest China, the results show that: (i) In the study area, the cumulative dominance index of perennial grasses, the comm

SUBMITTER: Yao H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6625698 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature