This book aims to present an alternative based on natural processes and an environmental approach to post-excavation site management, e.g., post-coal mining heaps. These sites are places where various mineral excavation by-products are collected. Nevertheless, some post-mineral excavation sites are oligotrophic, terrestrial, wetland, and water habitat islands, providing unique biodiversity enrichment in the landscape. These oligotrophic mineral habitats are essential in over-fertilized, eutrophic, agricultural and urban-industry surroundings. Some post-mineral excavation sites are places where the wildlife can develop and support the functional processes of novel ecosystems. Implementing the newest biogeochemical and comprehensive knowledge into urban-industry landscape management will help to establish the ecosystem's processes and environmental functioning.
There are several post-industrial sites in Europe where the wildlife areas developed due to natural processes, are becoming wildlife hotspots in densely populated urban-industry areas. In this respect, many of the oligotrophic mineral terrestrial, wetland, and water habitats of anthropogenic origin should not be categorized as environmentally dangerous and undergo economic utility-focused reclamation.
Facing the actual environmental constraints of the Anthropocene Epoch, the book's chapters presenting the natural basics and perquisites of the environmental ecosystem mosaics, will be interesting for a broad range of environmentalists (scientists and students), miners, economists, and sociologists.
About the Author: Artur Dyczko. Scientific interests: mining, coal mining, and management systems in the mining industry. Professionally, a mining engineer with over 25 years of experience, including nearly three years in the operation of the mine (copper, coal, coking coal) in KGHM S.A. and five years in JSW S.A., covering: exploitation of deposits, planning, and scheduling of production, deposit modeling, the economics of obtaining raw materials, optimization and restructuring of mining plants. At the same time, a researcher at the Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków. Since October 2021, adjunct at the Division of Mineral Resources Acquisition. Dr. Dyczko has been invited to become an assistant of the Director of the KOMAG Institute of Mining Technology to advise in terms of research planning and research and implementation. He won the national competition for the best scientific publication of Polish Mining Review for 2013. He is the author and co-author of many research works, expert opinions, implementation projects, and scientific publications in mining, mineral resource management, and computerization of industrial processes.
Andrzej M. Jagodziński. Scientific interests: identification of forest biodiversity patterns and plant productivity on both non-disturbed and degraded plant communities, carbon storage estimation in forest ecosystems, changes in functioning of forest ecosystems as a response to various environmental conditions, human impacts on plant species and communities, biodiversity conservation and functional ecology. Prof. Jagodziński is a biologist and forester by profession. He works at the Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kórnik; he is director of the Institute and head of the Department of Ecology. Prof. Jagodziński is also employed at the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology of the Poznań University of Life Sciences. He has published ca. 250 research articles, book chapters and popular science papers, including articles published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science, PNAS, and Global Change Biology. He belongs to the group of the most-cited authors worldwide, and his scientific activities have received numerous awards.
Gabriela Woźniak. Scientific interests: natural processes in urban-industry ecosystem mosaics, particularly vegetation development and the associated processes on post-mineral mining sites, ecosystem spontaneous re-establishment after mining of mineral resources and other disturbances, with particular attention on the non-analogous plant species composition and the associated recovery of biotic soil or soil substrate processes and functions, significance of spontaneous vegetation of the de novo human-created habitats in modifying fungal and bacterial colonization, nutrient cycling, soil enzymatic activity, carbon storage, soil respiration, and soil organic matter transformation. Prof. Woźniak studies the relations between vascular plants and other above- and belowground organisms, their interactions and their roles in ecosystem functioning. Her studies also cover plant species adaptation processes in human-created habitats and modifications in the physiology and functional traits of plants, as well as the role of oligotrophic post-mineral excavation sites in providing unique environmental biodiversity enrichment in the landscape. Recently, she has studied how novel ecosystems with non-analogous plant species compositions affect environmental and ecosystem functioning and provision of ecosystem services in urban-industry landscapes. Prof. Woźniak has published many research papers in journals indexed by Web of Science, and numerous books, book chapters and popular science articles. She works at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Silesia in Katowice.
