PROJECT OUTCOMES
Research Articles
Svobodova, K. (2023). Navigating community transitions away from mining. Nature Energy, 1-4.
The shift away from mining presents substantial livelihood security challenges for mining communities, but documented mining closures offer insights into how to ensure a successful transition. Secure community transitions require support from governments in the form of proactive planning, locally led collaborative responses and targeted investments.
Svobodova, K., Plieninger, T., & Sklenicka, P. (2023). Place re‐making and sense of place after quarrying and social‐ecological restoration. Sustainable Development.
Rapid urbanization increases pressure on extracting construction materials through
quarrying, which is disrupting and re-making places worldwide. In this study, we
examine how people's place making and sense of place are reconfigured through
quarrying. Taking a case study approach, we investigate perceptions of sense of place
after quarrying and social-ecological restoration in a limestone region of the
Czech Republic.
Svobodova, K., Chang, P., Olafsson, A.S., & Plieninger, T. (2025). Advancing social-ecological restoration through elicitation of cultural ecosystem services and landscape feature perceptions in restored quarries: a Flickr data analysis
The overall aim of this study is to advance social-ecological restoration by assessing how cultural ecosystem services (CES) and landscape features (LF) are represented in social media posts about quarries in Germany, Denmark, and the Czech Republic. Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyzed 1,660 geotagged photographs from 50 quarries across three regions: Berlin, Roskilde, and the Czech Karst. Flickr social media data were analyzed to elicit the richness of CES and LF and to identify popular quarries. Our study demonstrates that once primarily industrial sites, quarries can evolve into vibrant social-ecological systems.
Svobodova, K., Botková, K., & Plieninger, T. (2025). Dynamics of community-company interactions in quarrying regions
This study aims to gain deeper insights into the dynamics of community-company relationships surrounding quarries and the contextual environment influencing these relationships. We do so by exploring four communities in two quarrying locations in the Czech Republic. Our research is based on qualitative interviews with 20 participants from eight different stakeholder groups, complemented by document analyses and field observations.
Blog Articles
From geodata to dialogue: the transformative power of PPGIS in mining
Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) combine the power of local knowledge and geographic information systems, providing place-specific information about where the bonds between people and places are.
Turning mined lands into beautiful places: the aesthetics of ecological restoration
What happens to surface mining areas when mining activities are finished? How can these strongly inaccessible places turn into landscapes that actually appeal to people and contribute to their wellbeing? Ecological restoration may be a valuable option.
CESMINE: Towards Positive Post-Mining Legacies
Closed mines are being transformed — some into farms and new woodlands, others into tourist attractions, cultural venues or impressive renewable energy sites. As mine rehabilitation and repurposing are a relatively new phenomenon, little is known about the social and cultural benefits that post-mining sites provide to local and wider communities.
What to Do after Mine Closure? Pursuing Community Benefits in the Transition to Post-Mining
Mining represents a particularly intense way of human intervention in landscapes, with immense impacts on regional economy, culture and social life. Our new team member Kamila Svobodova provides insights into her social-ecological research on post-mining sites around the world.
Conference Presentations
AEBR Cross-Border School, Governance of the Green Deal in the border regions
20 October 2021 Radboud University, the Netherlands
IALE 2022 European Landscape Ecology Congress, Making the future, learning from the past
11 – 15 July 2022 Warsaw (online)