Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Indicators journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind Original Articles Evaluation of reclamation success in an open-pit coal mine using integrated soil physical, chemical and biological quality indicators Yamileth Domínguez-Haydar a, ⁎ , Elena Velásquez b , Jesús Carmona a , Patrick Lavelle c , Luis F. Chavez d,2 , Juan J. Jiménez e,1 a Universidad del Atlántico, Carrera 30 Número 8-49, Puerto Colombia, Colombia b Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Carrera 32 Chapinero, vía Candelaria, Palmira, Colombia c IEES, Sorbonne University, Paris, France d Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria – Agrosavia, Centro de Investigación Palmira, Valle del Cauca, Colombia e Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Restoration, Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE-CSIC), ES-22700 Jaca, Huesca, Spain ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Soil quality indices Dry tropical forest Soil macroinvertebrates Vegetation cover Technosols ABSTRACT The evaluation and success of ecological reclamation can be assessed by measuring soil physical, chemical and biological variables, either in isolation or combined into composite indicators. In this study we tested the suitability of biological, chemical and physical quality indicators–and their combination in a General Indicator of Soil Quality (GISQ)—to monitor soil quality in restored areas of an open cast coal mine. These composite in- dicators were computed with principal component analyses (PCA) and co-inertia multivariate analyses (CoIA). Our biological indicator showed a significant recovery of soil invertebrate communities along the chronose- quence. Taxonomic richness increased from 7 taxa the 1st year to 13–17 taxa in 6–20-y sites, far less than in forests (19–20). Soil pH, bulk density and proportion of physical and macro aggregates were highest in the 1-y site, while soil organic matter (SOM), total N and proportion of biogenic aggregates were highest in older sites. In general, the three sub-indicators and the GISQ yielded the lowest values in the 1-y site (from 0.1 to 0.3 on a scale of 0.1 to 1.0), intermediate in the 16- and 20-y sites, (0.4–0.7) and reached highest values in the two forests (0.4–1.0). The GISQ methodology proved efficient in assessing progress in the reclamation process which should not be achieved only by monitoring vegetation cover changes. 1. Introduction By destroying the original plant cover and removing the soil, open- cast mining has profound environmental impacts that need to be cor- rected once operations have been completed (Cooke and Johnson 2002; Nicolau and Moreno-de las Heras, 2005). Restoration of the natural capital in areas affected by mining activities is a necessary action to mitigate the effect of highly aggressive practices (Aronson et al., 2007). Restoration may take different forms–rehabilitation or re- clamation–depending on the objectives set (SER, 2004; Lima et al., 2016). Assessment of ecosystem services in reclaimed mining sites is now widely performed, but the success of operations is still highly variable. Success is mainly evaluated based on the reconstitution of a dense and diverse plant cover (Ruiz-Jaen and Aide, 2005). However, several studies clearly show that soil and associated ecosystem services restoration may still be very incipient in spite of a well-developed plant cover (Herrick et al., 2006). A healthy soil is necessary to sustain the development of vegetation and natural successional processes before a mature ecosystem is re- generated. Soil quality was defined by Doran and Parkin (1994) as “the capacity of soil to function, within ecosystem boundaries, to sustain biological productivity, maintain environmental quality, and promote plant and animal health”. In the context of mining operations, soil quality assessment may be complex because reclamation is performed on Technosols (IUSS Working Group WRB, 2014), i.e., a combination of mine spoils, natural topsoil and organic amendments with highly dy- namic properties (Asensio et al., 2013; Capra et al., 2015). High- or low-quality soils are subjective expert judgments based on the kind of properties managers want soils to provide: high biodiversity in natural nutrient-poor soils of tropical forest, or chemical fertility and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.04.015 Received 10 November 2018; Received in revised form 7 March 2019; Accepted 5 April 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: yamilethdominguez@mail.uniatlantico.edu.co (Y. Domínguez-Haydar). 1 ARAID Researcher. 2 Código 0000-0003-4251-9946. Ecological Indicators 103 (2019) 182–193 1470-160X/ © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd. T