Impact of Underground Coal Mining on Regional Landscape Pattern Change Based on Life Cycle: A Case Study in Peixian, China

Abstract

Landscape pattern change (LPC) can provide comprehensive insight into the effects of mining activities on regional ecosystems. This paper examined the impact of coal mining on LPC of Peixian mining area, China. An analysis of LPC was conducted based on GIS-RS technology from 1994 to 2014. The influence of coal mining on the LPC was studied quantitatively from the perspective of life cycle. The following conclusions were drawn: 1) The LPC of the study area changed significantly during the study period. Landscape type index showed a rising trend in fluctuation, and landscape fractal characteristics tended to be simplified and regularized. 2) Landscape indices of cultivated land and waterlogged subsidence zones were highly correlated with annual coal production, and the correlation coefficients were-0.634,-0.748 and 0.991, respectively. 3) The abrupt changes of largest patch index (LPI) and aggregation index (AI) of cultivated land occurred in 1999 and 2001, respectively. The LPI of waterlogged subsidence zones had a sustained upward trend since 1995, but the AI had a significant rising trend in 1997-2006 and 2011-2013. These results could provide useful guidance on sustainable land use planning and restoring the damaged landscape for underground coal mining areas.

Effect of Shallow-Buried High-Intensity Mining on Soil Water Content in Ningtiaota Minefield

“…Mineral resources provide a powerful impetus for the development of human society. However, due to its long formation cycle, low reserves, early extensive mining, the problems of regional land use change, and ecological environment deterioration have become increasingly serious [1,2]. The impact from mineral resources exploitation on the ecological environment has become a hot research topic for scholars [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10].…”

Mitigating Land Subsidence Damage Risk by Fly Ash Backfilling Technology: an Injection Case in Overburden of Coal Mining

“…Large-scale underground mining will break the balance of ecological and living environments, for instance, land collapse, surface buildings damage and ecological environment deterioration [4]. Meanwhile, controlling surface subsidence is the core issue to mitigate the impact of mining on the environment.…”