Artificial soils – a success story of mine rehabilitation in the Latrobe Valley

Description

As the Latrobe Valley’s three brown coal mines have grown in size over the years, they are experiencing both an insufficiency of natural topsoils, and challenges in the management of hostile (for plant and soil organisms’ growth) post-mining soils for the progressive rehabilitation of the mines. Artificial soils have been created by utilising waste products from three different industries located in the Latrobe Valley, namely mining (e.g. overburden, subsoil, waste brown coal and fly ash from the power plant), paper and pulp (e.g. effluent sewage recovery and recycling waste) and wastewater industries (e.g. compost).