Assessing integrated coal production and land reconstruction systems under extreme temperatures

Abstract

With the influence of climate changes resulting in more extremely days, we might expect to face a rise in associated coal productivity losses and land destruction. Numerous studies have focused on measuring the efficiency of coal production system. Yet scant studies have considered their internal structure, reconstructed lands, and especially the impact of extreme temperatures. Then, this paper divided such a system into stages of coal production (CP) and land reconstruction (LR), named the CPLR system. This study proposes a modified two-stage dynamic slacks-based measure model with non-discretionary variables for measuring the CPLR efficiency under four scenarios of extreme temperatures. The results are as follows. (1) The CPLR system for 24 provinces under four scenarios spanning 2012 to 2017 had relatively low efficiency except for Fujian, Inner Mongolia and Sichuan, which is mainly caused by the bad performance of the LR system. (2) Extreme temperatures must be considered in measuring CPLR efficiency and its stage efficiency, or otherwise the underestimation of CPLR efficiency and CP efficiency will become in 18 provinces. The negative impacts of extreme temperatures on the efficiency of reconstructed lands and raw coal production should be noticed, especially for Anhui.