Land Reclamation Of Lignite Mines In The Ptolemais-Amynteon Area, Macedonia, Greece

Land reclamation and rehabilitation of depleted coal mines in the wider area of Ptolemais-Amynteon is practiced by the Division of Mines of the Public Power Corporation of Greece in order to conform to the concept of environmentally sustainable economic development of its operations. Detailed chemical and mineralogical studies were performed on reclaimed soils and their crops in order to evaluate the results of land reclamation and rehabilitation while similar studies were undertaken in adjacent, regularly cultivated, soils. Results indicate that trace element concentrations as well as concentrations of elements of environmental concern to be higher in regularly cultivated soils than the reclaimed ones. However, the concentration of the elements in wheat grains harvested from both, regular and reclaimed, group of soils is the same. The reason for this behavior is the very low water solubility, of the elements in the soils, due to their high pH values and the nature of their occurrence. As a result, wheat crops produced from reclaimed-rehabilitated soils developed on depleted lignite mines in the wider area of Ptolemais-Amynteon do not pose any health problem on either humans or animals when consumed.