Ecological Modelling 170 (2003) 213–218

Monitoring of abandoned quarries by remote sensing

and in situ surveying
Giuseppe Bonifazi, Laura Cutaia∗ , Paolo Massacci, Ivan Roselli
Department of Chemical, Material, Raw Material and Metallurgical Engineering,
University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Via Eudossiana 18, 00186 Roma, Italy

Abstract
In Italy quarrying causes relevant environmental damages and alterations to the land and the ecosystems. Despite the present
Italian legislation requiring the restoration of the sites after exploitation, most of the quarries, both the abandoned and the still
operational ones, are not restored.
The objective of this work is to indicate a monitoring methodology in order to survey the present state of the quarry sites and
their evolution in time, which are the basic data needed to implement an adequate land reclamation project.
Such methodology has been applied to several abandoned limestone quarries in the Latina province (close to Rome), charac-
terised by a typical Mediterranean vegetation, but it can be applied to any other kind of litology and vegetation.
The land monitoring has been realised both by using remote sensing techniques, supported by a Geographic Information
System of the studied area, and by in situ surveying. The in situ surveying was able to assess the capability of the remote sensing
model to describe the state of each site.
© 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Quarry sites; Land monitoring; Reclamation; Restoration; Remote surveying

1. Restoration of abandoned quarries the surface (weathering processes), forming a layer

Restoration can be achieved by human interven-
tion through reclamation works (artificial restoration)
or it can be the result of a natural process (sponta-
neous restoration). In both cases the abandoned quar-
ries evolve from an unbalanced situation with respect
to the surrounding ecosystem (initial stadium) toward
a new equilibrium (final stadium) through dynamic
processes of soil formation and plants, animals and
micro-organisms colonisation.
The chemical and physical action of the atmospheric
agents slowly alters and crumbles the naked rock on
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39-0644585960;
fax: +39-0644585618.
E-mail address: cutaia@imagemp.ing.uniroma1.it (L. Cutaia).
of debris (soil) which allows some plants (pioneer
species) to take root. Moreover, the interactions be-
tween plants and debris provide further evolution both
of the soil and of the dynamic series.
The spontaneous restoration of abandoned quarries
generally takes a very long time (from several decades
to more than a century) depending on the nature of
the litology and on the phyto-climate. On the contrary,
through the use of modern techniques of quarry recla-
mation it is possible to achieve a quarry restoration in
a shorter planned period (Abate, 1999).
2. Studied area
This work takes into account the state of restoration
of some abandoned limestone quarries (Camponeschi

0304-3800/$ – see front matter © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0304-3800(03)00228-X
214 G. Bonifazi et al. / Ecological Modelling 170 (2003) 213–218

Fig. 1. Location of area of interest (Lazio Region, Italy).

ysed (AA.VV., 1993) in order to assess their state of

maturity, in relation to quarry restoration.

3.1. Remote sensing surveying

Two images acquired by Landsat 5 satellite, with

seven available spectral bands (wavelength from blue
to thermal infrared), have been pre-processed and

Fig. 2. A view of the quarry A3, Acquapuzza, Bassiano, Lazio

Region, Italy (17 May 2001).

and Nolasco, 1983), located on the base of the south-

western slope of the Lepini Mounts in Lazio Region,
Italy (Figs. 1 and 2). No kind of reclamation has ever
been applied to these quarries so their present state of
restoration has happened spontaneously.

3. Monitoring of the state of restoration

The methodology used in this work to assess the
state of restoration of abandoned quarries is based on
two different types of monitoring techniques: remote
sensing surveying (Aronoff, 1989; Banchini et al.,
1999) and in situ monitoring, through data and soil
samples collection. The soil samples have been anal-
Fig. 3. Landsat 5 TM image (4 May 1994) of the quarry A3
after processing. b4 /b5 values are equal to 0.58 for limestone rock
(lightest areas) and 1.43 for the surrounding undisturbed vegetation
(darkest areas). Though the quarry is abandoned since 1970, 24
years later the difference is still evident in vegetation between the
surveyed quarry and the surrounding undisturbed woods (Quercus
Ilex).
 G. Bonifazi et al. / Ecological Modelling 170 (2003) 213–218 215

geo-referenced (adopting appropriate geometric cor-

rection) through a suitable software and successively
processed to build synthetic normalised bands in order
to discriminate the naked rock from the surrounding
undisturbed vegetation (Lillesand and Kiefer, 1979;
Sabins, 1986; Drury, 1987; Brivio et al., 1990).
Dividing the pixel values (b3 ), obtained in the band
3 (red), by the pixel values (b4 ) and dividing the pixel
values (b4 ), obtained in the band 4 (near infrared),
by the pixel values (b5 ), obtained in the band 5 (mid
infrared), two synthetic normalised bands (b3 /b4 and
b4 /b5 ) have been obtained. Fig. 4. Sampling strips adopted in the situ monitoring (quarry A3).
Each pixel of the satellite images has been char- The numbers at the extremities of each sampling strip (S1 and
acterised through a value of the normalised synthetic S2) identifies the sampling square plots at the beginning (1) and
at the end of each strip, (15) and (11), respectively.
band. An example of such classification is shown in
Fig. 3. According to the calibration of the spectral re-
sponse of the quarry’s naked rock and its surrounding
undisturbed vegetation (b4 /b5 = 0.58 for the naked
rock and b4 /b5 = 1.43 for the undisturbed vegeta-
tion), darkest areas inside the quarry in the classified
image (highest b4 /b5 value) represent the areas with
highest level of restoration.

3.2. In situ monitoring

The in situ monitoring method used in this work

consists of several steps:
• choice of the parameters to survey: each parameter Fig. 5. Sampling square plots in the sampling strip S1 adopted in
has been selected to be indicative of a particular the situ monitoring of the quarry A3.

Table 1
Data collected in situ (sampling strip S1, quarry A3)
Sampling Soil cover Grass Number of Number of Number of trees φ foliage
plot (%) cover (%) shrubs trees higher than 0.5 m (m)
1 70 60 2 0 0 0.9
2 50 40 3 0 1 0.5
3 20 10 0 0 0 0.0
4 30 10 0 0 0 0.0
5 30 10 0 0 0 0.0
6 20 20 0 0 0 0.0
7 60 20 0 0 0 0.0
8 100 90 0 0 0 0.0
9 100 100 0 0 0 0.0
10 100 100 0 0 0 0.0
11 40 40 7 0 6 10.9
12 70 60 0 0 0 0.0
13 40 20 0 0 0 0.0
14 20 10 0 0 0 0.0
15 90 80 0 0 0 0.0
216 G. Bonifazi et al. / Ecological Modelling 170 (2003) 213–218

Table 2 Table 3
Normalisation values adopted Partial restoration indices obtained (strip S1, quarry A3)
Parameters Partial restoration Normalisation Sampling I1 I2 I3 I4 I5 I6
indices value plot
Soil cover I1 100% 1 0.70 0.60 0.20 0.00 0.00 0.06
Grass cover I2 100% 2 0.50 0.40 0.30 0.00 0.08 0.03
Number of shrubs I3 10 3 0.20 0.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Number of trees I4 2 4 0.30 0.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Number of trees I5 12 5 0.30 0.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
higher than 0.5 m 6 0.20 0.20 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
φ foliage I6 15 7 0.60 0.20 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
8 1.00 0.90 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
aspect of the restoration process (type of vegetation, 9 1.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
10 1.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
plants size, soil condition, etc.);
11 0.40 0.40 0.70 0.00 0.50 0.73
• selection of one or more sampling strips that must 12 0.70 0.60 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
be representative of the state of restoration of the 13 0.40 0.20 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
whole quarry (Fig. 4); 14 0.20 0.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
• creation of a comprehensive restoration index (Irq ) 15 0.90 0.80 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
able to describe the state of restoration of the whole
quarry, starting from the surveyed parameters.
The results of these elaborations are presented in
Each sampling strip is made of square plots of 5 m× Table 4. According to the Irq definition, the initial
5 m as shown in Fig. 5. state is characterised by Irq = 0 (naked rock), the
In each square plot the following parameters have final state by Irq = 1 (undisturbed vegetation).
been evaluated:
1. soil cover percentage; 3.3. Soil characterisation
2. grass cover percentage;
3. number of shrubs; Soil samples coming from the sampling square plots
4. number of trees; have been analysed in laboratory. At least two soil
5. number of trees higher than 0.5 m; samples were taken from each quarry: one sample rep-
6. diameter of the tree foliage. resentative of a plot showing a scarcely developed soil
and one sample representative of a plot showing the
Concerning the last parameter, if more than one tree most evolved soil in the quarry.
is present in a square plot, it has been considered the pH (soil reaction test) and organic matter content
sum of the diameters of all tree foliage (φ foliage). analyses have been carried out on the soil samples
The data collected for each square plot of each sam- (AA.VV., 1993).
pling strip, as shown in Table 1, have been normalised The data coming from these analyses have been
by dividing each parameters by a reference normalisa- correlated to the Ir (total restoration index) obtained
tion value (Table 2), corresponding to the final state of
restoration, as surveyed in the in situ monitoring. The
Table 4
result of this elaboration is shown in Table 3 (partial Comprehensive restoration indices (Irq ) obtained for each studied
restoration indices) for the quarry named A3 (Acqua- quarry (A3, P9, A4) and for the initial state (naked rock) and the
puzza). final state (undisturbed vegetation)
The average values of the partial restoration indices Class of restoration Irq
(Ī1 , Ī2 , Ī3 , Ī4 , Ī5 , Ī6 ) for each quarry have been used
Initial state 0.00
to calculated a comprehensive restoration index (Irq ),
Quarry A3 0.27
as follows: Quarry P9 0.42

Quarry A4 0.46
Ī12 + Ī22 + Ī32 + Ī42 + Ī52 + Ī62
Irq = Final state 1.00
6
 G. Bonifazi et al. / Ecological Modelling 170 (2003) 213–218 217

Fig. 6. Correlation between Ir and pH values.

Fig. 7. Correlation between Ir versus the organic matter content (%) (rhombus points) and between pH versus the organic matter content
(%) (square points). Regression curves are the best fitting the data points among the interpolation options available by MS Excel. Regression
equations and correlation coefficients are shown above each regression curve.

for the corresponding plot as follows: data points, assessed through R2 (R is the correlation

coefficient), among the ones available by MS Excel.
I12 + I22 + I32 + I42 + I52 + I62 Regression equations are shown in Figs. 6 and 7.
Ir =
6

where I1 , I2 , I3 , I4 , I5 and I6 are the partial restoration 4. Conclusions

indices of the soil sample plot.
Such correlations are presented in Figs. 6 and 7. The The results from remote sensing monitoring are well
regression curves used are the best interpolating the correlated with the monitoring performed in situ. In
218 G. Bonifazi et al. / Ecological Modelling 170 (2003) 213–218

Table 5 normalised bands) and the comprehensive restoration

Average values of normalised synthetic bands (b3 /b4 and b4 /b5 ) index (Irq ) obtained for each quarry (Table 5, Fig. 8).
and comprehensive restoration indices (Irq )
Besides, the results of the analysis performed on
Irq b3 /b4 b4 /b5 soil and rock samples collected in situ are well related
Naked rock 0.00 1.02 0.58 with the corresponding total restoration indices (Ir )
Quarry A3 0.27 0.77 0.70 and, therefore, with the synthetic normalised bands.
Quarry P9 0.42 0.70 0.73 The use of both remote sensing and in situ monitor-
Quarry A4 0.46 0.59 0.85 ing results an effective tool for checking abandoned
Undisturbed vegetation 1.00 0.23 1.43 quarries and for surveying their evolution during the
time.

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Fig. 8. Relationship between the values calculated for the nor-
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