Evaluation of Environmental and Economic Benefits of Land Reclamation in the Indonesian Coal Mining Industry

Imam Eko Setiawan, Zhengyang Zhang, Glen Corder and Kazuyo Matsubae
Additional contact information
Imam Eko Setiawan: Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, 468-1-505, Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Miyagi, Sendai City 980-0845, Japan
Zhengyang Zhang: Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, 468-1-505, Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Miyagi, Sendai City 980-0845, Japan
Glen Corder: Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
Kazuyo Matsubae: Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, 468-1-505, Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Miyagi, Sendai City 980-0845, Japan

Resources, 2021, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: While the successful reclamation of coal post-mining land sites in Indonesia has been evaluated, no cost-benefit analysis has been carried out on the reclamation of mined land, and the impact of the reclamation work has not been determined. The results of this case study indicate that reclamation work is not an emission-free process, but that the benefits delivered from this work are considerable. It was found that the emissions involved at the coal mined reclamation in Indonesia were 25.4–26.6 t-CO 2 /ha, with topsoil management and land preparation contributing over 98% of the total emissions (9.5 t-CO 2 /ha and 16 t-CO 2 /ha, respectively). The ability of the trees on the reclaimed land to absorb CO 2 emissions was calculated to be 26.4 t-CO 2 /ha, with the amount of oxygen produced calculated to be as much as 143 t-O 2 /ha of oxygen. The economic value of the ecosystem services delivered by reclamation was over USD 27,750/ha. This is higher than the USD 8642–9417/ha cost of establishing the reclamation work. Improvements to reclamation work could be designed mining and reclamation plans with attention paid to reducing fuel consumption, and therefore, reducing CO 2 emissions. Furthermore, law enforcement and transparency, human resource development, and community participation are strongly required.

Keywords: mine reclamation; land rehabilitation; responsible sourcing; ecosystem services; coal mining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/10/6/60/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/10/6/60/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jresou:v:10:y:2021:i:6:p:60-:d:570482

Access Statistics for this article

Resources is currently edited by Ms. Donchian Ma

More articles in Resources from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().