The functional vegetation diversity of mining subsidence reservoirs for
ecosystem services development at post-mining lands
Abstract
This paper tried to define the role of vegetation diversity as an
environmental factor, which determines functions and services served by
water reservoirs ecosystems originated as an effect of land subsidence
in post-mining areas. The aim of this study was to conceptualise: i)
whether the mining subsidence reservoirs, despite their similar origin,
differ in the level of species diversity; ii) whether water and
substrate quality and metric characteristics of subsidence pools affect
the diversity of vegetation; iii) which functional groups of species
contribute to ecosystem services provided by these objects. The study
was conducted in Central Europe in the Czech-Polish coal basin. The
species composition of vegetation, diversity (species richness (
S), Shannon-Wiener ( H’) and Simpson index ( λ)),
participation of dominant species and belonging to functional groups (
FG) was assessed in 10 reservoirs formed in subsidence. The
values of services provided by the ecosystems in mining subsidence
reservoirs by the indicator method were used. The results showed that
despite similar origins subsidence pools differ when it comes to the
level of diversity S, H’ and λ. In contrast, there is no difference in
terms of the average share of various FG. Vegetation diversity
was substantially affected by the size and depth of reservoirs,
humidity, C/N ratio, the concentration of P total in the soil, and water
clarity. The importance and value of ecosystem services provided by the
studied mining subsidence reservoirs and their vicinity were estimated
at 647,486.90 [$⋅ ⋅rok -1].