Challenges, dilemmas and success criteria of recycling coal mining landscapes

Abstract As our crowded and warming world continues moving away from fossil fuels such as coal, we are increasingly attempting to transform the landscapes damaged by mining into beneficial, appealing and valuable new uses. The post-mining transformation involves many dilemmas, often arouses land use conflicts and can reproduce environmental injustices. In the background of conflicts are diverging preferences for post-mining land uses from the perspective of various stakeholders. This paper examines key issues and dilemmas in post-mining transformation, including terminological inconsistencies, technical reclamation versus natural succession, heritage preservation choices, authenticity concerns, and success criteria issues. The underlying question we ask is: What is the future use of the coal energy landscape; that is, what should or could come next? To address this question, we provide a comprehensive literature review and an analysis of a sample of 28 case studies of good practice projects of reclamation or regeneration (i. e., recycling) coal mining landscapes from the Czech Republic. This study is distinctive in its comprehensive scope, analyzing a diverse range of recycling projects from surface mining landscapes to urban post-mining brownfields, with extensive analysis and findings. While the criteria of transparency and legitimacy of projects are essential for applying the principles of just transition, the criteria of efficiency and sustainability prove to be key measures of success according to which differences between projects appear in the longer term. The efficiency and sustainability are significantly associated with the multifunctionality of recycled landscapes and places and seasonality of their use.