Assessing the development of rehabilitated grasslands on post-mined landforms in north west Queensland, Australia

The Ernest Henry Mine in north west Queensland, Australia, is required to return disturbed land to native grassland and has been undertaking extensive revegetation of waste rock dumps since 2002. To ascertain the trajectories for revegetation success of these rehabilitated native grasslands, annual vegetation monitoring of both rehabilitation sites and selected reference areas has been undertaken since 2007. Long-term monitoring efforts have included assessments of vegetation composition, ecological structure and function at four rehabilitation areas (1-7 years post-rehabilitation) and proximal reference sites within surrounding grazed and ungrazed agro-ecosystems, undisturbed by mining. Our findings demonstrated that the oldest rehabilitated sites had similar species composition and functional elements to selected reference sites, although plant cover and biomass (particularly of native grasses) was lower than both grazed and ungrazed reference areas. The youngest sites had little established vegetation, however species richness was similar to the reference sites and functional life forms were present despite being in very low abundance. It is suggested that future monitoring events and informed management inputs (which consider local climatic conditions and soil fertility factors) could contribute to the development of a stable and sustainable native grassland thus achieving the desired end land use on these post-industrial landscapes. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.