EVST13015 - Mining, Urban & Industrial Lands Rehabilitation

General Information

Unit Synopsis

This unit will cover essential knowledge of natural and impacted (mining, urban and industrial) landscape features and their management. You will gain a theoretical and practical understanding of landforms, biogeography, and the effects of natural and man-made impacts on the sustainability of local ecosystems. You will also learn how erosion control, vegetation surveys, modern techniques of rehabilitation, productive use of degraded land and rehabilitation success criteria are used to return disturbed landscapes into sustainable or productive ecosystems. You will gain practical experience through field trips to disturbed and rehabilitated sites. The emphasis will be on Central Queensland sites with links to broader Australian landscapes.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 3
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 2
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Students must have completed 72 units of credit.

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School Compulsory Residential School
View Unit Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2023

Term 2 - 2023 Profile
Mixed Mode

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes – in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Written Assessment 20%
2. Practical and Written Assessment 30%
3. Online Test 50%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University’s Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2022 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 7.69% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Have your say
Feedback
A very enjoyable unit. Interesting and engaging. The teachings were thorough, in depth and highly applicable to environmental science.
Recommendation
This unit deals with practical aspects of rehabilitation via provision of local and and on-ground examples. This teaching practice should be continued.
Action Taken
A similar format, with some enhancements to the unit, was implemented during 2022.
Source: Have your say
Feedback
The lecturer is extremely passionate and his enthusiasm to rehabilitate and utilize disturbed landscapes via encouraging others to learn through positivity and with curiosity is commended.
Recommendation
Rehabilitation of disturbed sites is critically important for sustainable use of natural resources. Principles and practices of rehabilitation should continue to be taught in this unit in a way that inspires students to engage in rehabilitation.
Action Taken
Principles and practices of rehabilitation, consistent with the previous offering, were covered during 2022. Existing lecture videos that captured the enthusiasm of previous lecturers were used. The Moodle site was reinvigorated and supplemented with current resources from government, industry, research, and other organisations.
Source: Have your say
Feedback
The residential school was highly informative and useful to get to know the nature of disturbances occurring in CQ (Central Queensland), and how best those disturbed sites could be remediated.
Recommendation
Every disturbed site is unique, so a broader understanding of the rehabilitation practices used in the industry is necessary to find a solution to any given site. Field trips should continue to be part of the residential school to allow students to familiarise themselves with different approaches used in rehabilitating disturbed sites in Central Queensland.
Action Taken
Visits to pristine, degraded, and rehabilitated field sites, were organised and implemented for the 2022 residential school. Site visits included talks from a local farmer, as well as local government, state government and industry scientists. Concerted efforts were made to ensure students found the in-field restoration evaluation activities practical and insightful. A variety of experts were engaged to impart their land rehabilitation knowledge and experience during other parts of the field trips.
Source: Have your say
Feedback
A practical demonstration on the use of LFA (landscape function analysis) on day 1 of residential school will help understand the concept better, and apply this in the field more efficiently.
Recommendation
Students should be advised to read and understand theoretical aspects of Landscape Function Analysis (LFA) prior to attending the residential school. A practical demonstration of LFA should be continued to be presented on day 1 of the residential school.
Action Taken
Students were encouraged and reminded to become familiar with all Landscape Functional Analysis techniques prior to the residential school. Lecture content and readings covered this topic early in the term. Students were required to submit a draft outline of the in-field methods they proposed to conduct during the residential school and were provided feedback prior to heading out in the field. A sessional staff member and the unit coordinator were on hand to give further guidance and direction in the field.
Source: Student Unit and Teaching Evaluation comments; email; in-person; personal reflection.
Feedback
The lecture content was interesting and useful but some of it was slightly dated. The sound and picture clarity of lecture videos should be reviewed, and slides should be updated for currency.
Recommendation
The quality of the current lecture materials should be reviewed/updated by the unit coordinator in 2023. Affected videos should be re-recorded prior to the next offering.
Action Taken
Nil.
Source: Student Unit and Teaching Evaluation comments; email; in-person; personal reflection.
Feedback
The residential school was very informative and beneficial to the unit.
Recommendation
A similar format of field-based activities, site tours and talks should be implemented for the 2023 offering.
Action Taken
Nil.
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Describe key features of the biogeographic landscape
  2. Discuss the impacts of mining, urbanisation, industrial development and tree clearing activities on the sustainability of Australian landscapes
  3. Conduct land and vegetation surveys, simulate erosion events and describe disturbed land rehabilitation techniques
  4. Analyse the techniques used in the rehabilitation of degraded Australian landscapes
  5. Design a protocol for rehabilitation and/or sustainable management of a disturbed landscape
  6. Assess the criteria used to determine cost effectiveness and success of rehabilitation processes.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 - Written Assessment • •
2 - Practical and Written Assessment • • • • • •
3 - Online Test • • • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 - Communication • •
2 - Problem Solving • • •
3 - Critical Thinking • • • • • •
4 - Information Literacy • •
5 - Team Work •
6 - Information Technology Competence • •
7 - Cross Cultural Competence • • •
8 - Ethical practice • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - Written Assessment • • •
3 - Online Test • • • •
2 - Practical and Written Assessment • • • • •