Role of Soil Physical Properties in Ecological Succession of Restored Mine Land – A Case Study

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 biorestoration, 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.