Evaluating the sustainability of mine rehabilitation programs in China
Fuqiang Zhao, Yue Ma, Fengming Xi, Lun Yang, Jing Sun
Abstract
Social, economic, and environmental restorations are important concerns in mine rehabilitation programs. Nonetheless, limited attention has been given to the social and economic evaluation of mine rehabilitation programs in developing countries with fast‐growing economies and large populations. To evaluate the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of mine communities before and after mine rehabilitation programs, we placed the study in China, which has experienced large‐scale mine closures resulting from resource depletion. By adopting an integrative model, sustainability cube, we evaluated social, economic, environmental, and overall sustainability (the combination of social, economic, and environmental) of its mine rehabilitation program—the national mine parks (reengineering closed mines as tourist parks, which constitutes the mine rehabilitation program) at the community level before and after the park establishment. Our results indicate that the implementation of national mine parks has improved the overall sustainability of local communities; the sustainability scores of the economic and environmental sectors increased significantly, while the sustainability score for the social sector decreased (mainly due to increased emigration after mine shutdown). We provide suggestions to improve social sector performance in mine rehabilitation programs, aiming to further enhance overall sustainability after mine closure.