Abstract
Shallow-buried high-intensity mining (SHM) activities commonly in China’s western mining area will lead to the decrease of groundwater level and soil water content (SWC), which will aggravate the further deterioration of the local fragile ecological environment. In this study, the applicability and limitations of six typical soil dielectric models were comprehensively evaluated based on ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology and shallow drilling methods. Moreover, experiments were performed to test the variation of SWC in Ningtiaota minefield affected by the SHM. The results show that the fitting effect of the four empirical models and two semi-empirical models on the clay is better than that of the medium sand. Among the six models, the Ledieu model has the best performance for medium sand, and the Topp model for clay. After SHM, the shallow SWC decreases as a whole. The decreasing range is 4.37–15.84%, showing a gradual downward trend compared with the one before mining. The shorter the lagging working face distance, the greater the drop of SWC will be. The longer the lagging working face distance, the smaller the drop of SWC will be showing a gradual and stable trend.
Highlights
Accepted: 26 January 2021Mineral resources provide a powerful impetus for the development of human society.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]
As the content of soil organic matter and soil inorganic nutriments in shallow stratum is low, which is the case in arid and semi-arid coal mining areas, the main factors affecting the quality of land reclamation are soil media and soil water content (SWC) [21,22]
The SWC measured by the gravimetric method was compared with the calculated values of each model based on the ground penetrating radar (GPR) data to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the six soil dielectric models
Summary
Mineral resources provide a powerful impetus for the development of human society. 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]. As the content of soil organic matter and soil inorganic nutriments in shallow stratum is low, which is the case in arid and semi-arid coal mining areas, the main factors affecting the quality of land reclamation are soil media and SWC [21,22]. Remote sensing methods have the characteristics of high timeliness and strong dynamic contrast and can monitor large ranges of SWC and other information for a long time It can only measure the superficial layers of the soil [34,35]. The dielectric permittivity is calculated using precise wave speed of radar waves obtained by GPR data and drilling methods It compares the changes in water content before and after mining to analyze the effect of SHM on the shallow SWC in the minefield. The research can provide a theoretical basis for ecological restoration work such as vegetation restoration and farmland reclamation in the ecologically fragile areas of the SHM area
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