Recognition of Landscape Key Areas in a Coal Mine Area of a Semi-Arid Steppe in China: A Case Study of Yimin Open-Pit Coal Mine

Abstract

The ecological integrity and biodiversity of steppes were destroyed under the long-term and high-intensity development of open-pit coal mines in China, causing desertification, steppe degradation, landscape function defect, and so on. As a source of species maintenance and dispersal, an ecological source is a key area for preservation in order to restore the ecological security pattern of the larger landscape. The purpose of this study was to establish a landscape key area recognition model to identify the landscape key areas (LKA) surrounding an open pit coalmine located in semi-arid steppe. This study takes the Yimin open pit mining area as a case study. We assessed Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) remote sensing images taken during the peak season of vegetation growth from July to August in 1999, 2006, 2011, and 2017. From these images, we identified the main landscape types and vegetation coverage grades in order to identify the ecological land. Next, we applied the three indices of Importance of Patch Connectivity, Habitat Quality, and Ecosystem Service Value to calculate the comprehensive results that identify ecological land. Finally, the ecological land quality results of different years are superimposed and averaged, and then Very Important Patch (VIMP), Important Patch (IMP), and General Patch (GEP) areas were used for LKA extraction. Our results showed LKA to cover 177.35 km2, accounting for 20.01% of the total study area. The landscape types identified as LKA are primarily grassland (47.37%), wetland (40.27%), and shrubland (11.88%), indicating that landscape type correlates strongly with its value as a landscape key area. The proposed landscape key area recognition model could enrich the foundations for ecological planning and ecological security pattern construction in order to support ecological protection and restoration in semi-arid steppe areas affected by coal mining.

Landscape as Digital Content and a Smart Tourism Resource in the Mining Area of Cartagena-La Unión (Spain)

“…Although mining area landscape studies are relatively abundant, many refer to ecological conditions and environmental protection planning after the abandonment of the mines [18,19], and few publications have focused on the scenic conditions left after mining stops, and on how to apply new technologies to promote culture and tourism. Sometimes they refer to their advantages for smart management of destinations and their associated landscapes [20], and other times they address the opportunities for disseminating mining or industrial heritage values in education [21].…”

Integrating Landsat Time Series Observations and Corona Images to Characterize Forest Change Patterns in a Mining Region of Nanjing, Eastern China from 1967 to 2019

“…Although landscape ecology methods have been adopted to measure the forest landscape changes in mining areas, they are usually applicable at specific points [3,16]. Considering that the process of forest landscapes can help us better investigate the relationship between forest changes and landscape structure [25], we adopted two process models.…”

“…For example, Yang et al [10] adopted the LandTrendr algorithm to detect the spatial extent and change magnitude of the forest cover at a coal mine site in Australia. (2) Landscape pattern analysis [3,14,16,17]. These investigations analyzed the changes in landscape patterns, such as landscape structure and configuration.…”

“…Sonter et al [14] examined the land use change in Brazil's Iron Quadrangle mining region. Wang et al [16] identified landscape-critical areas around surface mines. (3) Assessment of vegetation restoration projects and their impacts on ecological services [18][19][20].…”

Optimization of Land Saving and Loss Reducing and Slope Stability Variation Patterns in Open-Pit Mine

“…In addition, large open-pit mines in China are mainly located in remote areas such as Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, where the ecological environment consists mostly of fragile Gobi or grasslands [3], and the open-pit mining operations [4] have caused large-scale damage to the geological structure and vegetation in these areas [5,6]. In the past 10 years, the large-scale development and construction of open-pit coal mines has caused the destruction of surface vegetation [7], exacerbated desertification in mining areas, and accelerated the degradation of local ecosystems [8,9].…”