Beyond extraction: understanding post-mining landscapes in coal regions of Germany and India

RWTH Publications (RWTH Aachen)

Abstract

This dissertation addresses an urgent problem at the intersection of spatial planning, environmental humanities, and critical landscape architecture: the dominant conceptualization of "post-mining landscapes" in coal regions as static, fully resolved end-states rather than ongoing, processual transformations. While systems-oriented landscape theory has long championed the primacy of dynamic process over fixed form (Berger, 2008; Latz, 2003), existing literature and policy frameworks in coal transitions remain fixated on static "post-mining land use" categories. Critical geographic perspectives further demonstrate that post-extractive terrains cannot simply be "healed" or restored to a pristine prior state (Deshaies, 2020; Fiori et al., 2020). By bridging this gap, this study contends that these landscapes exist as permanently altered, contested systems where new spatial realities emerge. Grounding this theoretical shift in empirical inquiry demands an analytical approach that tracks how institutional processes unfold across nested territorial scales - from national level policy mechanisms to regional scale with specific projects on coal mining. To interrogate this, the inquiry engages two historically and institutionally distinct coal-mining territories: the lignite fields of Germany’s Rhenish Mining Region (RMR) and the black coal reserves of India’s North Karanpura Coalfield (NKCF) in Jharkhand. Rather than serving as a standard comparative study, these cases are placed in dialogue to illuminate the plural meanings that post-extractive landscapes must embody across divergent legal traditions, planning cultures, and colonial legacies (Chakrabarty, 1992; Escobar, 2018). The core knowledge gap addressed by this research lies at the policy-design interface —> the crucial hinge where formal mine closure policy should translate into post-mining land use. Dominant academic and regulatory discourses remain fragmented. While technical literature focuses on inconsistent "R4" taxonomies i.e. remediation, reclamation, rehabilitation, and restoration (Lima et al., 2016; Pagouni et al., 2024) practical implementation relies heavily on abstract classification models and decision-support tools (Mborah et al., 2016; Narrei & Osanloo, 2011) that lack concrete spatial mechanisms. Compounding this issue, current regulations treat mine closure and future land use as separate, one-after-the-other steps. Closure is treated purely as a way for companies to clear their legal responsibilities, while future land use is cut off from the real history and social impacts of the mine. This separates policy from design and hides the long-term problems that shape the region's future. To bridge this divide, the study introduces a flexible dual-lens framework that separates and clarifies two frequently conflated domains: mine closure as a policy-driven, legally bounded process concerned with ending extraction, and post-mining land use as a planning- and design-oriented endeavor focused on future territorial possibilities. Guided by the primary research question “what challenges and opportunities shape the policy-design interface in post-mining transitions, and how do these become visible when the mine, the region, and the community are analyzed together through displacement-resettlement, restoration practices, and design inquiry in the RMR and NKCF?” the study adopts a qualitative methodology grounded in assemblage theory (DeLanda, 2006; McFarlane, 2011) and structured around the People-Place-Process heuristic the research sequences national institutional understanding with grounded field inquiries. The empirical findings reveal three major structural insights across both contexts: First, post-mining terrains are an analytic illusion; they are never truly "post," but exist as mining landscapes-in-transition governed by long-tail liabilities, residual materials, and continuous socio-ecological adjustment. In the RMR, pit-lake flooding relies on multi-decadal Rhine-water transfers creating multi-generational geotechnical and water-quality liabilities. In the NKCF, unmonitored backfill, residual mine fires, and unmanaged pit water create perpetual physical and environmental instability. Second, displacement operates as a primary landscape-making force through functional displacement. In the RMR, accelerated coal phase-outs produce prolonged "limbo towns" where social life, local networks, and sense of place (Heimat) fray long before physical relocation occurs. In the NKCF, land acquisition under the Coal Bearing Areas Act of 1957 lacks statutory Social Impact Assessment or consent mandates, producing rigid employment formulas (e.g., one job per two acres) that disenfranchise subdivided households, customary land users, and sacred geographies (Sarna). Third, a profound asymmetry exists between technocratic compliance and genuine socio-ecological repair. Corporate eco-parks and monoculture tree plantations provide audit based legibility on paper but fail to account for or restore agro-pastoral livelihoods, non-timber forest resources, or regional water quality (as demonstrated by failed pit-lake fisheries). In contrast, community-held knowledge and spontaneous ecological succession remain systematically marginalized from formal restoration agendas. To transform mine closure from mere compliance to long-term care and commons-based repair, the dissertation outlines five interconnected policy and design pathways. First, resettlement must be made rights-based, enforceable, and temporally realistic by mandating binding Social Impact Assessments under the Federal Mining Act in Germany, while extending RFCTLARR-style consent and PESA safeguards to all coal acquisitions in India. Second, restoration needs to be binding, place-based, and ecologically specific, replacing generic canopy metrics with functional socio-ecological targets and governing pit lakes as co-designed commons with strict water pre-treatment rules. Third, participation and accountability must be strengthened by formalizing Citizens' Advisory Councils in Germany and granting binding authority to Gram Sabhas and District Oversight Boards in India over closure plans and District Mineral Foundation budgets. Fourth, design should be leveraged as dialogue, co-production, and adaptive planning by institutionalizing spatial design workshops and International Building Exhibition process platforms to mediate territorial conflicts and prototype adaptive land uses. Finally, financing, liability, and long-term stewardship must be treated as first-order planning problems through independent, public-law Eternity Funds (Ewigkeitslasten-Fonds) in Germany and escrow releases tied strictly to ten-year third-party socio-ecological audits in India. This dissertation contributes to spatial research and critical landscape theory by replacing the binary of extraction versus completed restoration with the processual concept of mining landscapes-in-transition. Methodologically, it demonstrates how assemblage thinking enables a non-hierarchical, dialogic framework that places Global North and Global South closure regimes into a shared analytical space without enforcing false symmetry. Suggesting a design ethic of "embracing the damage," the work positions landscape architects not as late-stage aesthetic finishers, but as critical translators and negotiators across complex socio-ecological-technical systems. As the accelerating global demand for Energy Transition Minerals risks replicating historical extractive harms, connecting Just Transition policy directly with spatial design in New Energy Landscapes provides the essential scaffolding to ensure future energy transitions do not overwrite local rights, cultural continuity, and socio-ecological repair in the name of global climate mitigation.

Authors 1

1. Amrita Slatch corresponding Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen