Effects of different ecological restoration methods on the soil physicochemical properties and vegetation community characteristics of the Baotou light rare earth tailings pond in Inner Mongolia, China

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international Vol. 31; no. 13; pp. 19725 - 19737
• Main Authors: Chen, Tianyu, Qu, Ning, Wang, Jinxiao, Liu, Yaochen, Feng, Jiao, Zhang, Shilei, Xu, Chunying, Cao, Zhiquan, Pan, Jun, Li, Chunlin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.03.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Biomass; Bulk density; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecological effects; Ecotoxicology; Electrical conductivity; Electrical resistivity; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Environmental restoration; Mine tailings; Moisture content; Physicochemical properties; Plants (botany); Ponds; Porosity; Principal components analysis; Redundancy; Research Article; Restoration; Soil density; Soil improvement; Soil investigations; Soil porosity; Soil properties; Soil structure; Soil water; Tailings; Vegetation; Waste Water Technology; Water content; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Plant–soil interactions; Ecological restoration; Tailings pond; Vegetation diversity; Plant population and community dynamics; Spray seeding
• ISSN: 1614-7499; 0944-1344; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-024-32295-0

This study investigated the soil physicochemical properties and vegetation community characteristics of the Baotou light rare earth tailings pond after 10 years of aggregate spray seeding ecological restoration (S1) and ordinary soil spray seeding ecological restoration (S2), and the naturally restored dam slope area without human intervention (S3). The results showed that the vegetation community of S1 was dominated by Caragana korshinskii Kom , and its importance and abundance values were 0.40 and 38.4, respectively, while the vegetation communities of S2 and S3 mainly comprised herbaceous plants. Additionally, the vegetation biomass of S1 was significantly higher than that of S2 and S3 by 215.20% and 1345.76%, respectively, and the vegetation diversity index of S1 was the highest among the three treatment groups. The soil porosity (SP), water content (W), electrical conductivity (EC), and available K were significantly improved in S1, while soil bulk density (BD) was significantly reduced compared with that of S2 and S3. In addition, redundancy analysis revealed that SP, EC, W, and K positively correlate with the biomass, Shannon, Pielou, Simpson, and Marglef indices. Principal component analysis further showed that the comprehensive score of S1 (0.983) was higher than that of S2 (− 0.261) and S3 (− 0.648). Collectively, these findings indicate that appropriate ecological restoration can improve soil structure and vegetation community characteristics, thereby accelerating vegetation restoration, ultimately increasing the stability of the ecosystem.