The mining sector is one of the economic activities which are currently growing in the EC, especially in terms of limestone for the manufacture of cement.

This means there will be an increase in mined areas causing the effects of mining to be more rigorous. Restoration activities subsequent to the extraction of mineral resources have been commonly carried out for the last 15 years. These actions are regulated by national and/or local laws . According to preliminary studies, the actions can vary in intensity and characteristics leading to final results which are variable.

Although the extraction sector has incorporated quality control systems in its processes, very few companies have chosen to apply for environmental certification. With respect to the area of ecological restoration, there are no such habits and the lack of a quality approach in the entire restoration process repeatedly leads to actions which are not profitable and/or scarce reproductibility. One of the reasons that environmental control systems have not been incorporated in ecological restoration processes is the lack of defined minimum results.

Up to the present date, landscape aspects which accept the first phases of re-vegetation as valid have been prioritized, accepting as a premise that over time there will be an evolution towards desired systems. Aspects such as the diversity of the ecosystem or the quality of the resulting vegetation have not been controlled up to the present date.

Recent studies show that there are restored areas which may remain unchanged during long periods of time leading to vegetation and overall structures and compositions which are very different from the natural vegetation affected by the mining process. Accordingly, there should be new focuses in the planning and management of restoration.

The major objective of the proposal is to implement at the real scale the latest advances on quarry restoration in a wide set of representative sites in Mediterranean conditions.

Methods and protocols are based in previous RTD projects, considering innovations in the ecological quality of the biological interventions, through using native plant species, and developing standardised quality control procedures to ensure better quality restoration projects and environmental benefits, such as a rational and minimum use of irrigating water and an increase in carbon fixation.

Pilot projects aim at directly transferring the procedures to the large and small enterprises in the sector of concrete and dry commodities, in addition to the administration responsible for the surveillance of quarry restoration.