Revealing ecological restoration process and disturbances of mineral concentration areas based on multiscale and multisource data

Quantitative evaluation of ecological restoration effectiveness is critical to provide operational feedback for mine restoration and to implement adaptive management. Existing practice are limited by a focus on single elements and sub-project scales. This paper proposed an ecological restoration evaluation framework with 8 dimensions and 24 indicators from macro perspective, taking a mineral concentration area (MCA) in southeastern Hubei as a case study. LandTrendr and random forest algorithms were used to extract and classify different ecological disturbances around the mine sites from micro perspective. The ecological restoration process and disturbances were revealed at different scales. The findings demonstrated that the total ecological restoration area increased by 10.092% from 2010 to 2019, showing an improving trend, but it has not recovered to the ecological level of 2000. The ecologically degraded areas were shifting to the urban areas with concentrated population and around the water, from area diffusion to strip extension. Ecological disturbances changes in mining areas shows there was a trend towards slower ecological restoration of mine sites after 2019. Disturbances due to construction development occurred in areas surrounding closed mining areas, especially in Huangshi National Mine Park and Tonglvshan Copper Mine. Notably, natural restoration occurred in mine-forest compound area without any ecological restoration measures. While the findings demonstrate the effectiveness of ecological engineering, there are still some limitations in the mine ecological restoration process. In response, we suggest an international framework for ecological restoration in mining areas to solve the cognitive gaps in ecological engineering, improve the management of the whole process of ecological restoration, and optimize the ecological restoration effect in mining areas.