Abstract
Abstract. This study aims to evaluate the effect of underground coal mining subsidence on the growth of native vegetation. For this study, an underground coal mine of South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), India was selected. Changes in vegetation indices were analyzed using three remote sensing data of the previous five years. Three period’s Landsat 8 OLI resolution image data were used to calculate Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of the years 2014, 2016 and 2018 in QGIS environment. The study showed that the local grassland and forest were affected by the mining exploitation and subsidence but those effects were not significant to have an adverse impact on the same. The short-term mining was having an impact on the vegetation growth but the effects gradually disappeared with the gradual stabilization of the subsided land and in absence of human interference, vegetation recovered well. In long-term, subsidence was not having a major impact on the vegetation growth. Thus, coal resources exploitation and subsidence of the said mine of SECL did not bring out an adverse impact on a wide range of forest and grassland ecosystems, and these ecosystems could carry the partial destruction and ultimately stabilized ecosystems by self-repair.
Highlights
Mining plays an important role in productions of raw materials, minerals and coal to be used for industrial and domestic needs (Brunn et al, 2001, Dittmann et al, 2002)
There are various impacts of mining on its surroundings which may lead to a number of geological changes such as collision with mining cavities, ground movements and deformations of aquifers which leading to mining subsidence
This study aims to evaluate the effect of underground coal mining subsidence on the growth of native vegetation through the analyses of short-term i.e. five year’s landscape dynamics using Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques
Summary
Mining plays an important role in productions of raw materials, minerals and coal to be used for industrial and domestic needs (Brunn et al, 2001, Dittmann et al, 2002). An irreversible damage to soil cohesion may occur due to usage of heavy machines in coal extraction processes from mine galleries and eventually, compression of soil substrates may take place (Brunn et al, 2002, Eikhoff et al, 2007).* Several adverse environmental impacts of mining subsidence might be produced such as soil erosion, soil and water contamination, flooding due to damages to aquifers and inundation at the surface, as well as damages to the infrastructures. These all have a cumulative impact on the growth and health of the native vegetation. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) techniques have shown clear advantage over conventional field inspection and lab estimations for evaluating long to short-term landscape dynamics (Venkatesan and Padmanaban, 2012, Rajchandar et al, 2017), for bigger areas, where ground leveling and surveying by Global Positioning System (GPS) are expensive, labor-intensive and time-consuming, GIS and RS offer quick and effective information on geological variations and subsidence (Morfeld et al, 2002)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
