# Environmentally Friendly Rock Mining--Case Study of the Limestone Mine \"Gorazdze\", Poland
## 2 Reclamation Directions and Factors Determining the Choice of Direction  
Polish legislation defines reclamation as granting or restoring usable or natural properties of degraded or devastated land. On the other hand, agricultural, forestry or other uses of reclaimed land are defined as the development of the reclaimed land. Both terms are integrally and serially connected because the way the land is used (developed) in the future determines the choice of direction, scope and manner of reclamation (Figure 1). Reclamation is the last stage of mining activity (liquidation of a mining plant) and is a legal obligation of a mining entrepreneur. Its development, however, is already the post-mining use of the reclaimed area, and the responsibility for it lies with the future user of the reclaimed land, who is not always a mining entrepreneur [24].  
An important element of the process of the liquidation of post-mining areas is to determine the direction of reclamation and, consequently, the forms of management. The choice of such a direction should be preceded by a detailed analysis of the factors influencing the choice of the optimal solution. The analysis of relevant literature has shown that such factors mainly include [2]:  
* Geological and engineering (technical) factors: surface, depth of the excavation, decline of slopes and their stability, type of mineral, type of excavation, tectonic phenomena--faults and cracks, karst phenomena, infrastructure objects of the mining plant;
* Natural factors: physiography, soil conditions, vegetation cover, occurrence and condition of ecosystems, elements of inanimate and animated nature, occurrence of wild plants and animals, landscape, natural habitats, character and quality of surrounding areas;
* Hydrogeological and hydrographic factors: groundwater level, presence of rainwater in the excavation--occurrence of impermeable layers, location in relation to water courses;
* Social and economic factors: demography, society's affluence, unemployment level, social acceptability level, social needs, level of land development, transport infrastructure, distance from built-up and industrial areas;
* Formal and legal factors: structure of land ownership, entries in local spatial development plans, legal regulations that may affect the solutions of designed projects;
* Economic and financial factors: they reflect most of the above-mentioned factors and also determine the decisions regarding the selection of future functions of the post-mining area.  
Reclamation is a dynamically developing field. In recent years, as a result of the reclamation experience, alternative possibilities of using post-mining areas have appeared [7; 11; 16; 18; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30]. Various possibilities of the reclamation and management of post-mining areas have appeared and resulted in many classifications of reclamation directions. On the basis of the systematics developed so far by [PERSON] et al., [20; 24; 31] made an attempt to create systematics that define all the possible directions of the reclamation of post-mining areas. In this system, the division into general and detailed directions has been maintained, which is due to the fact that general directions are insufficient to properly describe the functions to be performed by the post-mining area. Therefore, the systematics discussed here have six general directions and 23 specific directions, as shown in Table 1.  
Figure 1: Life stages of a mine.