Advances of eco-environmental remediation of mine wasteland

Mineral resources are important material bases to support Chinese social and economic development. On the other hand, mining activities have introduced severe environmental pollution and resulted in serious impacts on the surrounding environment, such as the decrease of cultivated areas, destruction of sensitive ecosystems. Therefore, the eco-environmental restoration of mine wastelands is more and more concerned by experts and government departments. The current status of mineral resources exploitation, environmental problems caused by mining activities, related policy, and current restoration situation were reviewed. Meanwhile, the characteristics and ecological restoration objectives of mine wastelands were analyzed, related substrate modification and eco-system restoration technologies introduced, and the application adaptability and advantages and disadvantages of the technologies pointed out. Finally, some potential solutions were proposed aiming at the problems such as lacking of investment funds and technologies, so as to provided reference for the ecological restoration of mine wastelands in the future.