Environmental effects of mining coastal dunes: conjectures and refutations
Year: 1998
Type: article
Abstract: The conjectured effects of mining coastal dunes in northeast South Africa were that mining would cause irreparable damage, homogenise soils. destroy litter, and reduce biodiversity that rehabilitation would not restore. It was further conjectured that succession to forest climax takes centuries. that post-mining vegetation recovery is a junction of distance from the seashore where refugia exist, and that ecologists cannot predict local succession. The conjectures were tested using 44 unmined and 62 mined sample plots. Mined and unmined soils could not be distinguished reliably. The depth of the organic layer at the soil surface was a function of time since disturbance and soil density. Species richness did not differ between mined and unmined land. The upper asymptote of species richness was projected to be reached in 28 to 40 years post-mining. and convergence on forest climax composition in 54 to 70 years. Distance from the seashore was confounded with other variables that better explained vegetation recovery. The key multiple regressions developed to test the conjectures accounted individually for 45% or more of the variation in the dependent variables, and had overall P values from <0.01 to <0.001. Randomly assigned subsets of the database yielded statistically indistinguishable patterns. implying that inferences were robust.
Source: South African Journal of Science
Institution: University of KwaZulu-Natal
Language: English
Subfield: Nature and Landscape Conservation
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2466183221