Recommendations for sustainable forest management of aggregates quarries

Abstract

The forestry rehabilitation of quarries allows to return the land to timber production in case of alluvial quarry, or more frequently to restore a good landscape quality by woodland plantation on working faces and slopes of pits. A synthesis of the tree needs and of the specificity of forest soils allows to reveal the reclamation's characteristics. Working faces in the Mediterranean area often offer extremely severe climatic conditions and few topsoil available for plants. Some improvements are possible: Cliff-size faces blasting to shape them to a better compatibility, to regenerate a thicker soil using settling silt and organic matter (composts) and to protect tree plants against herbaceous competition for water, to plant directly on overbunden or deads, nitrogen fixative species and mycorrhized plants. As quarry survey showed that the young plant lack of quality made the reclamation unsuccessful, we precise some improvements to ensure a better quality of the supply.