Rural System's
Speech:
A Computer System to Aid in Mined-Land Reclamation
A lecture by Robert H. Giles, Jr., 1980, Professor, Systems Ecology Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061before an informal conference in western Virginia on mined land reclamation
Throughout the Appalachian region of the U.S. and many parts of the world there are coal surface mines that were worked and abandoned without reclamation. These were left before laws were passed or people realized the full implications, long-term costs, and foregone benefits of such lands. They are called abandoned or orphan mines. Many pre-mine-law areas have been reclaimed and some have been re-mined when new equipment allowed further extraction, or when coal price increases justified further work. Nevertheless there are thousands of acres of such lands. There are many estimates of the area and it is easy to understand how variable these may be. In Virginia alone there are said to be about 20,000 acres.
Several years ago the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supported a project at Virginia Tech to answer questions about reclamation policy and actions on these lands in Appalachia. Their interests have been in wildlife conservation throughout the U.S. but in particular they were interested in how reclamation programs might influence wildlife. Of course the interest was in devising practical ways by which desirable wildlife populations could be enhanced and benefits from the resource increased. The policy issues included: what, if any, effect would various reclamation efforts have on wildlife? and how can those effects be shaped in positive directions. Other policy issues such as federal concerns for wildlife resource enhancement and preservation of threatened species, had already been addressed by law but there were no efficient ways to respond to the laws.
One prime policy issue under study which I took with my graduate students was as follows: Suppose an orphan mine left for 20 years had grown up in volunteer grasses, weeds, and pines. Though spotty, it may be fair wildlife habitat. Should nature's 20-year long reclamation project be destroyed and started over by a highly energy-intensive human program?
That was a core problem for the Virginia Tech study that resulted in the production of a computer-based system called MINE-1. It was a system that produces a book about a mine. The book is a detailed prescription of what to do on each area or unique unit (about 1/4 acre or larger) of the abandoned mine in terms of seeds, fertilizer, or dozens of other practices.
| Table 1 . Partial List of Contents of a MINE-1 Report |
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The study was a team effort of scientists, graduate students, programmers, and administrators. Equations were developed for small mammal abundance so trapping would not be needed in the future on each mine. Measurement of stems, stem size, and plant layers on a few plots give data which, when used in equations, give reliable estimates of likely population indices. The same was found for breeding bird populations. Given that there are thousands of such sites around the world and no way in reasonable time or cost to do studies on each, these equations developed by graduate researchers (such as John Haufler, Dave Chapman, and Bill Flick) are fundamental to the program.
Whether to reclaim or not was a thorny question posed by Bob Downing, Fish and Wildlife Service biologist with the project. With his work, the team with major programming done by Ned Okie, arrived at a solution diagrammed as Fig. 1.
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| Fig. 1. Reclamation of vegetation, often of value to wildlife, is likely to respond differently on different sites. It may be that reclamation efforts result in losses, the shaded area in the lower figure. |
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| Figure 2. The ratio of gains to losses becomes a decision variable for whether to attempt restoration or revegetation on abandoned surface mines (or similar areas). |
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| Fig. 3. The computer syste, produces detailed analyses of the relations between losses and gains, e.g., 0.14 in the figure above, 2.58 below |
MINE-1 includes Maurice LeFranc's plant selection program that lists most suitable plants, given ecological site factors and suitability for wildlife. It includes numerous recommendations for wildlife in these areas but it is clearly not a "wildlife" system. From the beginning, the system was designed so that wildlife was integrated into the considerations of plants, spacing, trees, forest fire, protection, road building and maintenance (as it influences water quality), highwall management, and dozens of related considerations.
Larry Pelz's studies on mine-bench ponds provided base line information on stocking strategies and pond management. Bill Matter's doctoral work played a role in recommendations about stream populations of fish and fish food.
Ed Saunders added the broad view, for in his innovative watershed models he allows project leaders to see what the effects of the mine are now, how they will change if reclamation is done and whether significant long-term changes can be expected in peak flows, and sediment loads in the watershed (say 600-1000 acres) in which the mine is located.
The system is not complete. It was a prototype and demonstrates that a practical, functional, computer-based aid can be produced for solving mined-land problems. Many relations and equations in the system are universal, others are area specific. With additional work on field studies to create equations and their incorporation into the system, a very useful, generalpurpose system can be created and dynamically improved. The system now shows that a positive and constructive approach can be taken to regulation. It shows that, if properly designed, research findings can be built into practical, operational systems, and it also suggests "dirty-old computers" or "cold technology" may be a way to reduce the them-against-us attitudes that are found throughout the world and encourage mutual efforts toward a common desire -- a decent place to live.
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