Reclamation of coal mine overburden dumps in India

Mining is often associated with destruction of natural ecosystem and restoration of this drastically disturbed ecosystem to ecological equilibrium is a challenging problem. After laboratory screening, five tree species were selected to evaluate the vegetation growth performance on a coal mine overburden dump for sustainable development of mining industry. Experiments showed that laboratory based field trial experiments are necessary for the self sustaining ecosystem development on degraded mine lands. Results indicated that indigenous leguminous trees ant best early successional plant species for maximum productivity and organic matter inputs to the dump for preventive soil runoff, al-and water pollution and ultimately for the reclamation of overburden dump.