北方防沙带是我国防治沙化和荒漠化的关键地带，是“三北”工程的核心区，区内土壤贫瘠、风速大、干旱缺水、植被稀少、生态恢复力低，而大型露天煤矿开采与生态保护矛盾突出，直接影响区域生态安全和国家能源保供，迫切需要开展大型露天矿区生态保护修复研究。针对北方防沙带大型露天煤矿区开采引起的土地破坏、扬尘起沙、水位下降、土壤沙化、植被退化等问题。以北方防沙带面积和露天煤炭产量占比均最大的内蒙古的大型露天煤矿区为研究区，秉承“减损开采－立体保水－造土活土－系统修复－集成监管”的研究思路，揭示大型露天矿岩土损伤−生态退化传导机理、生态减损开采机制、重建生态自维持机制，研发生态保护型减损开采、生态化设计、水资源保护与综合利用、抗侵蚀地貌重塑、排土场活土层精细重构、土壤改良与提质增容、菌−藻-草联合修复、生态系统退化监管等关键技术，形成适合北方防沙带露天煤矿区生态保护与修复技术体系，建成大型露天矿区生态保护修复集成示范区。创建低成本、高效率、可持续、可复制的大型露天矿区生态保护修复模式，为保障我国北方防沙带大型露天矿区科学开采与生态安全提供支撑，实现煤炭开发能源保供与生态保护相协调、“开发金山银山，再造绿水青山”的目标。

The northern sand-proof belt is the key zone for preventing and controlling desertification and sandification in China, and it is the core area of the “Three Norths” project, which is characterized by infertile soil, high wind speed, drought and water shortage, sparse vegetation, and low ecological resilience, and the contradiction between large-scale open-pit coal mining and ecological protection is prominent, which directly affects the regional ecological security and the national energy security, and there is an urgent need to carry out the research on the ecological protection and restoration of large-scale open-pit mining areas. The study of ecological protection and restoration of large-scale open-pit mining area is urgently needed. To address the problems of land destruction, dust and sand, falling water level, soil sanding, and vegetation degradation caused by large-scale open-pit coal mining in the northern sand belt, the study is based on the area of the northern sand belt and the size of the open-pit coal mine. Taking the large-scale surface coal mining area in Inner Mongolia, which has the largest area and proportion of surface coal production in the northern sand belt, as the research area, the research idea of “loss-reducing mining - three-dimensional water preservation - soil creation and soil revitalization - systematic restoration - integrated supervision and management” is revealed. Adhering to the research idea of “loss-reducing mining - three-dimensional water conservation - soil creation and living soil - system restoration - integrated supervision”, the research area reveals the transmission mechanism of geotechnical damage and ecological degradation of large-scale surface mines, the mechanism of ecological loss-reducing mining, the mechanism of ecological self-sustainability, and develops key technologies such as loss-reducing mining with ecological protection, ecological design, water resource protection and comprehensive utilization, erosion-resistant geomorphological remodeling, fine reconstruction of the living soil layer in the discharge site, soil improvement, and quality enhancement and capacity increase, and joint restoration of fungus-algae-grass, ecosystem degradation supervision and other key technologies, form an ecological protection and restoration technology system suitable for the open-pit coal mine area in the northern sand-proof belt, and build a large-scale integrated demonstration area for ecological protection and restoration of the open-pit mine area. We will create a low-cost, high-efficiency, sustainable and replicable ecological protection and restoration model for large-scale open-pit coal mining areas, provide support for scientific mining and ecological safety in large-scale open-pit coal mining areas in the northern sand-proof belt of China, and realize the goal of coordinating energy supply and ecological protection in coal development and the goal of “developing the gold and silver mountains and recreating the green mountains and green water”.