Opportunities and challenges of land reclamation and ecological restoration in mining areas under carbon neutral target

Green development and carbon neutrality in 2060 have become China's national development strategy. Land reclamation and ecological restoration in mining areas are the only way to green development of coal industry. It is found that in addition to restoring green and ecological functions, it also has a dual role in increasing carbon sinks, which not only prevents and suppresses carbon emissions due to land damage, but also increases carbon sinks due to vegetation and ecological restoration by analyzing the properties of land reclamation and ecological restoration in mining areas. Therefore, mining area ecological restoration is a green technology for increasing carbon sinks, which is in line with the national development strategy and will usher in new development opportunities. The incentive of the carbon neutral policy to the ecological restoration of the mining area is mainly embodied in seven aspects: guiding the scientific restoration, setting the leading standards, carrying out scientific and technological research, implementing the main responsibilities of enterprises, setting the project demonstration, strengthening financial support and establishing the market mechanism. Five major technical challenges will be faced by the ecological restoration of mining areas under the guidance of carbon neutrality: ① Carry out the research on the effect of reducing carbon and increasing sink of ecological restoration in mining areas from the four aspects of monitoring objectives, measurement parameters, parameter acquisition and calculation methods, and simultaneously carry out the assessment of reducing carbon and increasing sink of ecological restoration in mining areas; ② Leading role of the ecological restoration planning in the mining area in the increase of carbon sinks is played through the planning incorporating the concept of carbon neutrality, the planning measures and schemes for the increase of carbon sinks, and the optimization of restoration schemes based on carbon sink; ③ In addition to considering the function of water and soil conservation traditionally, increases the design and comparative analysis of increasing the carbon sink function in landform remodeling design; ④ Scientifically analyze and evaluate the sink increasing effect of different soil reconstructions, popularize sink increasing soil reconstruction technology, and simultaneously research the sink increasing reconstruction materials and soil profile; ⑤ Research and develop plant community selection and vegetation restoration technologies considering both ecological benefits and sink enhancement effects.