scholarly journals Mapping Annual Land Disturbance and Reclamation in a Surface Coal Mining Region Using Google Earth Engine and the LandTrendr Algorithm: A Case Study of the Shengli Coalfield in Inner Mongolia, China

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wu Xiao ◽  
Xinyu Deng ◽  
Tingting He ◽  
Wenqi Chen

The development and utilization of mining resources are basic requirements for social and economic development. Both open-pit mining and underground mining have impacts on land, ecology, and the environment. Of these, open-pit mining is considered to have the greatest impact due to the drastic changes wrought on the original landform and the disturbance to vegetation. As awareness of environmental protection has grown, land reclamation has been included in the mining process. In this study, we used the Shengli Coalfield in the eastern steppe region of Inner Mongolia to demonstrate a mining and reclamation monitoring process. We combined the Google Earth Engine platform with time series Landsat images and the LandTrendr algorithm to identify and monitor mining disturbances to grassland and land reclamation in open-pit mining areas of the coalfield between 2003 and 2019. Pixel-based trajectories were used to reconstruct the temporal evolution of vegetation, and sequential Landsat archive data were used to achieve accurate measures of disturbances to vegetation. The results show that: (1) the proposed method can be used to determine the years in which vegetation disturbance and recovery occurred with accuracies of 86.53% and 78.57%, respectively; (2) mining in the Shengli mining area resulted in the conversion of 89.98 km2 of land from grassland, water, etc., to barren earth, and only 23.54 km2 was reclaimed, for a reclamation rate of 26.16%; and (3) the method proposed in this paper can achieve fast, efficient identification of surface mining land disturbances and reclamation, and has the potential to be applied to other similar areas.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 4273
Author(s):  
Maoxin Zhang ◽  
Tingting He ◽  
Guangyu Li ◽  
Wu Xiao ◽  
Haipeng Song ◽  
...  

Socioeconomic development is often dependent on the production of mining resources, but both opencast and underground mining harm vegetation and the eco-environment. Under the requirements of the construction for ecological civilization in China, more attention has been paid to the reclamation of mines and mining management. Thus, it is the basement of formulating policies related to mining management and implementing reclamation that detection of mining disturbance rapidly and accurately. This research carries on an empirical study in the Dexing copper mine, Jiangxi, China, aiming at exploring the process of distance and reclamation. Based on the dense time-series stack derived from the Landsat archive on Google Earth Engine (GEE), the disturbance of surface mining in the 1986–2020 period has been detected using the continuous change detection and classification (CCDC) algorithm. The results are that: (1) the overall accuracy of damage and recovery is 92% and 88%, respectively, and the Kappa coefficient is 85% and 84% respectively. This means that we obtained an ideal detection effect; (2) the surface-mining area was increasing from 1986–2020 in the Dexing copper mine, and the accumulation of mining damage is approximately 2865.96 ha with an annual area of 81.88 ha. We also found that the area was fluctuating with the increase. The detected natural restoration was appraised at a total of 544.95 ha in the 1988–2020 period with an average restoration of 16.03 ha. This means that it just restores less in general; (3) it has always been the case that the Dexing mine is damaged by mining and reclamation in the whole year (it is most frequently damaged month is July). All imageries in the mine are detected by the CCDC algorithm, and they are classified as four types by disturbing number in pixel scale (i.e., 0, 1, 2, more than 2 times). Based on that, we found that the only once disturbed pixels account for 64.75% of the whole disturbed pixels, which is the majority in the four classes; (4) this method provides an innovative perspective for obtaining the mining disturbed dynamic information timely and accurately and ensures that the time and number of surface mining disturbed areas are identified accurately. This method is also valuable in other applications including the detection of other similar regions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Rongxing He ◽  
Jing Zhang ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Delin Song ◽  
Fengyu Ren

Continuous mining of metal deposits leads the overlying strata to move, deform, and collapse, which is particularly obvious when open-pit mining and underground mining are adjacent. Once the mining depth of the adjacent open-pit lags severely behind the underground, the ultimate underground mining depth needs to be studied before the surface deformation extends to the open-pit mining area. The numerical simulation and the mechanical model are applied to research the ultimate underground mining depth of the southeast mining area in the Gongchangling Iron mine. In the numerical simulation, the effect of granular rock is considered and the granular rock in the collapse pit is simplified as the degraded rock mass. The ultimate underground mining depth can be obtained by the values of the indicators of surface movement and deformation. In the mechanical model, the modified mechanical model for the progressive hanging wall caving is established based on Hoke’s conclusion, which considers the lateral pressure of the granular rock. Using the limiting equilibrium analysis, the relationship of the ultimate underground mining depth and the range of surface caving can be derived. The results show that the ultimate underground mining depth obtained by the numerical simulation is greater than the theoretical calculation of the modified mechanical model. The reason for this difference may be related to the assumption of the granular rock in the numerical simulation, which increases the resistance of granular rock to the deformation of rock mass. Therefore, the ultimate underground mining depth obtained by the theoretical calculation is suggested. Meanwhile, the surface displacement monitoring is implemented to verify the reasonability of the ultimate underground mining depth. Monitoring results show that the indicators of surface deformation are below the critical value of dangerous movement when the underground is mined to the ultimate mining depth. The practice proves that the determination of the ultimate underground mining depth in this work can ensure the safety of the open-pit and underground synergetic mining.


Author(s):  
J. Zhang

Abstract. InSAR has developed a variety of methods, such as D-InSAR, PS-InSAR, MBAS, CT, SqueeSAR, POT, etc., which have been widely used in land subsidence monitoring. For open pit mining areas, there are usually mining activity, complex terrain features, low coherence, and local large deformation gradients, which makes it difficult for time series InSAR technology to obtain high-density surface deformation information in open pit mining areas. Traditional methods usually only monitor the linear deformation of the surface caused by the mining of a few working zone above the underground mining area, and the temporal and spatial resolution is lower. How to obtain high-precision, high-density, and time-sensitive deformation information is the main difficulty of InSAR monitoring in open pit mining areas. Make full use of the geosensor network monitoring system, optimize monitoring mode of collaborated satellite-to-ground based InSAR, further realize whole calculation and geographic information services, to achieve early identification and discovery of abnormal in large-area macro-monitoring, and accurate monitoring of local areas in real-time early warning, which is the development direction of ground deformation monitoring of mining areas. The study area is Pingshuo open pit mining area. we fully study the application mode and services of InSAR monitoring for geohazards in open-pit mining area, through the establishment of satellite InSAR technology system for large-scale macro-monitoring and forecasting, and GBSAR and GSN for local precision monitoring. The effective mode of InSAR monitoring of geohazard in open-pit mines is summarized. A combination of D-InSAR, POT (Pixel offset tracking), Time Series-InSAR and GB-SAR is used in a wide range, and high-resolution optical images are used to identify localized changes in subsidence areas and open-pit mining areas.


Author(s):  
Peng Hongge ◽  
Cai Qingxiang ◽  
Zhou Wei ◽  
Shu Jisen

With the deepening of surface coal mine, the application of combined surface mining with underground mining is increased now. According to the influence analysis of underground mining on surface coal mine end-wall slope, the thin plate model of mined slope was proposed with distortion and stress distribution of the girder studied. Considering the practice of combined surface mining with underground mining, the modified method was put forward. Based on the roof breaking law of mined slope, the minimum width of protecting coal pillar was elicited. Subsequently this paper took the combined mining practice of Anjialing surface mine as example to study the subsidence law of roof and the influence of underground mining to surface mine slope. The research conclusion indicates that under the condition of combined mining the deformation and subsidence of overlying strata are obvious with a clear lag time, and the ceiling distortion evokes distortion of mined slope, which can be used as the theory sustainment to stabilization of mined slope under combined surface mining with underground mining.


Author(s):  
T. V. Galanina ◽  
M. I. Baumgarten ◽  
T. G. Koroleva

Large-scale mining disturbs wide areas of land. The development program for the mining industry, with an expected considerable increase in production output, aggravates the problem with even vaster territories exposed to the adverse anthropogenic impact. Recovery of mining-induced ecosystems in the mineral-extracting regions becomes the top priority objective. There are many restoration mechanisms, and they should be used in integration and be highly technologically intensive as the environmental impact is many-sided. This involves pollution of water, generation of much waste and soil disturbance which is the most typical of open pit mining. Scale disturbance of land, withdrawal of farming land, land pollution and littering are critical problems to the solved in the first place. One of the way outs is highquality reclamation. This article reviews the effective rules and regulations on reclamation. The mechanism is proposed for the legal control of disturbed land reclamation on a regional and federal level. Highly technologically intensive recovery of mining-induced landscape will be backed up by the natural environment restoration strategy proposed in the Disturbed Land Reclamation Concept.


2021 ◽  
Vol 303 ◽  
pp. 01029
Author(s):  
Alexander Katsubin ◽  
Victor Martyanov ◽  
Milan Grohol

Information about the geological structure of Kuznetsky coal basin (Kuzbass) allows us to note that coal deposits developed by open-cast method are characterized by complicated conditions and have the following features: large length of deposits at significant depths of occurrence; coal series bedding of different thicknesses (from 1 to 40 m); different dip angles (from 3 to 90º); a significant number of dip and direction disturbances; different thickness of unconsolidated quaternary sediments (from 5 to 40 m); a wide range of strength values of rocks. In addition, there is a thickness irregularity and frequent variability of elements of occurrence of coal seams within the boundaries of a quarry field both in length and depth of mining. From the point of view of open-pit mining, such deposits are complex-structured. The factors listed above have a decisive influence on the choice of technical means, the order of development and the possibility of carrying out surface mining operations. Therefore, there is a need for a systematization of mining and geological conditions for the development of coal deposits, the purpose of which is to ensure a process of evaluation of complex-structured coal deposits for the development of coal-bearing zones by various complexes of equipment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 4683
Author(s):  
Masoumeh Aghababaei ◽  
Ataollah Ebrahimi ◽  
Ali Asghar Naghipour ◽  
Esmaeil Asadi ◽  
Jochem Verrelst

Vegetation Types (VTs) are important managerial units, and their identification serves as essential tools for the conservation of land covers. Despite a long history of Earth observation applications to assess and monitor land covers, the quantitative detection of sparse VTs remains problematic, especially in arid and semiarid areas. This research aimed to identify appropriate multi-temporal datasets to improve the accuracy of VTs classification in a heterogeneous landscape in Central Zagros, Iran. To do so, first the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) temporal profile of each VT was identified in the study area for the period of 2018, 2019, and 2020. This data revealed strong seasonal phenological patterns and key periods of VTs separation. It led us to select the optimal time series images to be used in the VTs classification. We then compared single-date and multi-temporal datasets of Landsat 8 images within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform as the input to the Random Forest classifier for VTs detection. The single-date classification gave a median Overall Kappa (OK) and Overall Accuracy (OA) of 51% and 64%, respectively. Instead, using multi-temporal images led to an overall kappa accuracy of 74% and an overall accuracy of 81%. Thus, the exploitation of multi-temporal datasets favored accurate VTs classification. In addition, the presented results underline that available open access cloud-computing platforms such as the GEE facilitates identifying optimal periods and multitemporal imagery for VTs classification.


Greece was one of the biggest producers of asbestos in the world as well as a consumer. It took advantage of the asbestos rich Zidani mine, in the region of Western Macedonia in Greece. However, due to serious health problems caused by inhaling asbestos, it was banned in 1979 and the mine closed in March 2000. Rehabilitation management of the abandoned asbestos mining area, the depositions in the open - pit mining area and the tailings remnants was necessary in order to avoid health and environmental problems in the wider area The detailed soil protection and rehabilitation project of the degraded mining area was implemented taking all necessary and appropriate safety and health measures according to the requirements of the relevant E.U and National legislation, so that accidents would be prevented. Results show that the rehabilitation, soil protection and enhancement of the area help the ecosystems to be sustainable, ecologically and socially acceptable


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document