Applications of remote sensing and GIS for monitoring of coal fires, mine subsidence, environmental impacts of coal-mine closure and reclamation

Impacts of Mining and Urbanization on the Qin-Ba Mountainous Environment, China

“…This water can be very acidic and laden with high concentrations of toxic heavy metals posing threats to the environment. Mining activities also cause health problems in the local communities and among wildlife by exposing them to mining waste in air, water and soil [24,[34][35][36][37][38]. The large-scale mining in the Qin-Ba mountainous area is posing direct and indirect threats to the local ecosystem [39,40].…”

Rapid determination of coalbed methane exploration target region utilizing hyperspectral remote sensing

“…What's more, some scholars proposed methods to use hyperspectral remote sensing to map the surface alteration rocks (ferrous iron mineral, carbonate, clay mineral) over oil-gas reserviors (Van der Meer et al 2002;Van der Werff et al 2006;Xu et al 2008). In coal geology, the main application of remote sensing and geographic information system is monitoring of coal fires, mine subsidence, environmental impacts of coal-mine closure and reclamation (Duzgun et al 2011;Kuenzer et al 2012). To the best of our knowledge, there is little information available in published literatures about mineral mapping on CBM enrichment regions for CBM exploration purpose using hyperspectral remote sensing.…”

Geomorphology of coal seam fires

“…Instead, the landforms and features observed in all coal fire areas are presented systematically. For our study of coal fires over the years, we exploited a variety of methods from geomorphology, structural geology, engineering geology, and remote sensing (Hecker et al, 2007;Kuenzer et al, 2007aKuenzer et al, ,b,c, d,e,f, 2008aYang et al, 2008;Düzgün et al, 2011). Particularly, detailed field investigations (mapping of geomorphologic features, temperature measurements, joint interpretation of topographic data, mine works information, and satellite data, as well as the detailed interpretation of high-resolution satellite data) and mapping of fires for many consecutive years (Kuenzer et al, 2008c) support the results presented here.…”

“…Last, but not least, coal fire geomorphology helps to explain landscape features that otherwise would not be understood. Therefore, remote sensing, thermal radiometry and gas measurements (Zhang J. et al, 2004b;Kuenzer, 2005;Litschke et al, 2005;Kuenzer et al, 2007a,b,c,d,e,f;Kuenzer et al, 2008c,d, Vice, 2011, Düzgün et al, 2011, Kuenzer, 2012 are not the only data that should be collected when mapping a coal fire region with several individual coal fire zones. Often, coal fires are located so deep or under a soft, non-fracturing material (e.g., strongly weathered shale) that cracks and vents releasing hot gases are not present to indicate the underground fire's activity (Wolf and Bruining, 2007).…”