The damage caused to the environment by the by -products of the mining industry has been the subject of much attention in the developed world. In this paper, attempts have been made to introduce practical and economical methods for RECLAMATION and rehabilitation of the mining waste. We begin by eXplaining the relationships between the mining industry and the surrounding environment. The nature of the damage caused to air, water and soil is discussed. Land RECLAMATION is then discussed and data regarding physical and chemical characteristics of the mining waste is explained. Amongst different methods for stabilization of the waste, revegetation has been adopted for further analysis. Revegetation has then been subject to economic feasi bility study and the internal rate of return and the net present value for typical project in Iran is calculated. It is concluded that conversion of mining waste to forests is an economically feasible project. Such project, with an internal rate of return of 26.5% compares favourably with most other projects undertaken by the government of Iran.

About this book: This book provides an overview of arid and semi-arid lands conditions, their general characteristics, and methods of management, conservation, exploitation, and RECLAMATION. It also focuses on how to utilize the potential of arid lands with the minimum manipulation and alteration.....

Large volumes of potable water are imported into almost all urban areas of Iran at extremely high cost, while considerable volumes of urban storm water are disposed of out of the cities and wasted, mostly into bodies of saltwater. In this paper, urban storm water is examined as a potentially valuable and reclaimable resource. A model is introduced in which storm water runoff is captured and stored behind a small dam of height H with an overflow weir of length L to waste excess flows. At the same time, the storm water is diverted through a side weir of width W, to be conveyed to suitable recharge grounds for later RECLAMATION and use. A particular watershed, in the arid and rapidly urbanizing city of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran, with 24 years of rainfall records, was chosen and used in the model. The rainfall from nine other arid, semiarid and wet regions were used as input to the same watershed. The results show that the amount of reclaimable water as a percent of total runoff is almost the same for all the regions. This study provides a relationship, which defines the reclaimable water as a function of W,L and H. The relationship may be used for planning urban storm water RECLAMATION projects. The normal parameters defining arid, semiarid and wet climate are not of significance in this relationship. The relationship, however, may be further refined if one incorporates the number of intense storms as an extra parameter.