Erzgebirge Repeatedly Recovered: An Overview of the Environmental History of a Central European Mining Landscape

The Erzgebirge, located in Germany (Saxony) and the Czech Republic (Bohemia), is of particular importance for the economic and territorial history of Central Europe, as well as for the development of mining technology and science on a global scale. At the same time, the region’s long history of intensive mining and other industrial activities is an extreme example of human impact on a mountain landscape. This paper summarises approximately 40 years of research across various disciplines, such as mining history, archaeology, geography, botany, and geochemistry, on the regional environmental history of the last millennium. The analysis of this well-developed yet widely scattered knowledge base was carried out in relation to three fundamental research questions, i.e., the impact of the environment on humans, the impact of humans on the environment, and human perceptions of the environment. The results are presented in specific topics, covering rural and mining-driven urban colonisation, the environmental consequences of mining and metallurgy and their impact on water, forest, soil and human health, as well as the effects of war. A summary of the region’s distinctive creative achievements in technology, science, economics, and the arts, resulting from its involvement with mining and the environment, rounds off the picture. This review demonstrates how phases of mining booms have repeatedly alternated with phases of environmental recovery, mostly occurring during economic downturns. Recovery from even the worst environmental disasters in the region to date, intensive uranium mining and widespread forest dieback during the second half of the 20th century, has been successful.