Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia:

I. V. Zenkov, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, zenkoviv@mail.ru
V. N. Vokin, Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences
E. V. Kiryushina, Associate Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences
A. S. Morin, Professor, Doctor of Engineering Sciences

Recently Russian and other countries exercise R&D using Earth remote sensing (ERS) resources. The authors have estimated the ecological state of lands disturbed by open pits, external dumps and tailings at mined-out iron ore deposits in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Development of vegetation ecosystem on all mined-out lands is monitored using available ERS resources. From interpretation of satellite images taken over the monitoring period from 1999 to 2017, the change in the area free from the vegetation cover on the mined-out lands is determined. The dynamics and structure of the vegetation cover on the areas of pits, dumps and tailings of iron ore mining are revealed. The remote monitoring finds the increase in the total area of mining landscape from 1330.2 ha in 1999 to 1609.2 ha in 2017. The total area free from the vegetation cover reduces from 820.8 to 659 ha, while the area with all types of vegetation grows from 429.2 to 806.7 ha. The area of the water surface in mined-out pits increases from 80.2 to 112.1 ha. The article demonstrates application of satellite imaging results in solving such mining challenges as rehabilitation of environmental impact of open pit iron ore mining. From the authors’ estimates, self-regeneration of vegetation ecosystems on the lands of 6 isolated mining landscapes generated after mining of the Krasnokamensk and Irba groups of iron ore deposits in the Kuragino region of the Krasnoyarsk Territory proceeds at the ecologically admissible rate. This conclusion is substantiated by the high vegetation recovery index 0.56, which implies sustainable vegetation cover on more than 50 % of the mining-disturbed land. At the same time, restoration of mining lands is also required to accelerate self-regeneration of vegetation.
The authors highly appreciate participation of Associate Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences K. V. Raevich, Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia, in this studies.

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