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res can be ascribed to other use. In particular the so- 
called rest holes belong to the last category of areas 
which resulted from huge mass deficits by coal extraction 
and excavation technology. The re-increase of ground 
water table has filled up the holes. The lateral zones of 
the rest holes, and especially those ones of the hole F 
(Fig. 4), where sedimentation processes are still under 
way, have been selected and preserved, beside others, 
as natural succession areas. Another reason for this 
decision is the fact, that these rest holes can not be used 
for recreation purposes. Similar renaturation areas were 
also selected in the southern part of the opencast mine. 
As the closure of the mine took place only in 1991, the 
natural succession in this part have begun substantially 
later. According to the above mentioned goal of efficient 
environment monitoring for renaturation processes in 
post mining landscapes, appropriate test areas were 
selected in the rest hole peripheral zones after botanic 
viewpoints. These areas can be described as so-called 
pioneer settling communities in the form of: 
- silver grass-festuco-brometea 
- grass and herbaceous plants 
- reed areas and 
- dumps covered with dense moss. 
An aerial photograph taken in June 1995 confirmed the 
assumption made in preparatory investigations, that the 
vegetation categories could be differentiated by CIR ima- 
gery. As no high spatial resolution satellite photographs 
from the cameras KFA-1000 respectively KWR-1000 
  
0.5 0 
were available in 1995, aerial photographs were used to 
simulate suitable data sets with a spatial resolution of 
2m. For comparing purposes merged panchromatic and 
multispectral SPOT data with a final resolution of 10m 
were investigated (Fig. 4). It was demonstrated, that in 
case of the high resolution satellite data four categories 
of vegetation could still be discerned. The SPOT data 
set, on the other hand, permitted only a discrimination 
between vegetation and uncovered soil without being 
able to further differentiate single vegetation categories. 
Matching the interpretation results for succession areas 
obtained by the simulated satellite data with a ground 
truth botanic survey, more detailed parameters can be 
derived for the running renaturation process. 
4 RECULTIVATION PROCESSES 
Determination and supervision of recultivation processes 
of opencast mine dumps require in particular the 
observation of vegetation development. Depending on 
dump soil quality, which is linked to the soil material 
deposited by a special conveying bridge, and the follow- 
up measures aimed at physico-chemical soil 
amelioration, the dump areas are prepared for 
agricultural and forestal usage or for landscaping 
measures (wetland habitats, slope stabilization) as well. 
For monitoring recultivation processes it is necessary to 
determine the object category of the areas, their state 
  
0.5 km 
Fig. 4. Comparision between high spatial resolution satellite data for the determination of succession areas in the 
region of Schlabendorf, left: simulated KWR 1000, resolution 2m, right: SPOT XP-*XS, resolution 10m 
771 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B7. Vienna 1996