THE PROJECT
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Pilot Project Information


The Minerals Restoration Potential project began in January 2005 with funding provided by Defra through the Department for Communities and Local Government's (DCLG) Sustainable Land-won and Marine Dredged Aggregate Minerals Programme, which is managed by the Minerals Industry Research Organisation (MIRO).
 
The project set out to understand the contribution the minerals industry could make to UK BAP habitat creation targets, and to begin to address delivery of this potential contribution. Two outputs have beenproduced, the first of which was the advocacy report Nature After Minerals (see below for more details).
 
The second output is this interactive website, launched in late February 2007 and aimed primarily at mineral planners, operating companies and nature conservation organisations. The mapping tool allows you to find any of the active opencast minerals sites in England. Each of the minerals sites has its own page showing the wildlife habitat or habitats that could be created there and why. From each site page, one click takes the user to detailed advice on how to create the suggested habitat(s) on a minerals site. Case studies detailing real-life examples of creating all types of habitats on minerals sites bring it all to life.
 


Nature After Minerals: how mineral site restoration can benefit people and wildlife was launched by the RSPB in November last year. The report shows for the first time the vast areas of priority wildlife habitat that could be created across England - over 8,000 hectares of reedbed and almost 25,000 hectares of lowland meadows for example – enough to exceed Government UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) habitat creation targets for nine different habitats.
 
Unfortunately, only a fraction of this potential is being turned into reality. Most opportunities to create large-scale priority habitats that contribute to BAP targets and provide real natural areas for people are being missed. However, the RSPB believes that the blocks identified in the report as causing these opportunities to be missed can be overcome. Nature After Minerals sets out a vision for the future, and recommendations for all involved in minerals planning to help us make the most of minerals sites, for people and for wildlife.
 
Nature After Minerals Report can be downloaded here – or contact us and we will post a copy to you.


The habitat creation potential of each of the minerals sites covered by this website was established through the GIS modelling which was a focus of the Minerals Restoration Potential project. The same model results provided the statistics presented in Nature After Minerals, which also features the results of a survey of mineral planners, operating companies and nature conservation organisations.
 
The following methodology explains how both the GIS work and survey were carried out.


A GIS database of the 1300 active mineral sites (defined as those where working is actively taking place) in England was created by collecting data from 98 Mineral Planning Authorities during 2005. This information on extent of active planning permission, end-use of the site and whether extraction intercepted the water table, supplemented data licensed from the British Geological Survey (BGS).
 
Four other sets of data were used in the model:
• Soilscapes data licensed from NSRI
• BAP habitat inventories downloaded from English Nature and the RSPB's Heathland Extent and Potential dataset
• Land-use within a 1 km buffer of each of the 1,300 sites: semi-natural habitat digitised from aerial photographs
• Joint Character Areas (JCA) downloaded from English Nature.
 
Habitat creation experts built up a matrix of ecological parameters defining conditions under which each of 17 priority BAP habitats would be physically possible. The model was built in ArcGIS 9.1 around this matrix of mineral type, soil type, hydrological conditions and broad bio-geographic zones (using JCAs). First, the model used the parameters to find sites where each habitat was physically possible. Some sites had the potential to support more than one priority BAP habitat type. There is therefore some overlap between the areas of habitat that can be created. The model then went on to prioritise sites, based on proximity to existing patches of the same habitat, as shown below:
 
• Priority 1: mineral site adjacent to existing fragment of the semi-natural habitat
• Priority 2: mineral site within 1 km of existing fragment of the semi-natural habitat
• Priority 3: mineral site within 5 km of existing fragment of the semi-natural habitat
• Physically possible: mineral sites with suitable conditions within broad biogeographic zone of the semi-natural habitat.
 


The survey set out to investigate blocks preventing nature conservation from being a more common end-use of mineral sites. Structured phone interviews with a group of core stakeholders allowed investigation of some of the key areas preventing nature conservation. This information was used by the RSPB's Market Research team to create an unbiased questionnaire for each of three audience groups: mineral operating companies, mineral planners and nature conservation organisations and ecologists. The questionnaire was printed and sent out by post to over 400 contacts. A total of 143 responses were received – and the results of these were collated and analysed.


For more information about the project, please contact us


This product includes mapping data licensed from Ordnance Survey with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office. ©Crown Copyright 2007. All rights reserved. Licence number 100021787.