Abstract
Coal fires have been found to be a serious problem worldwide in coal mining reserves. Coal fires burn valuable coal reserves and lead to severe environmental degradation of the region. Moreover, coal fires can result in massive surface displacements due to the reduction in volume of the burning coal and can cause thermal effects in the adjacent rock mass particularly cracks and fissures. The Wuda coalfield in Northern China is known for being an exclusive storehouse of prime coking coal as well as for being the site of occurrence of the maximum number of known coal fires among all the coalfields in China and worldwide, and is chosen as our study area. In this study, we have investigated the capabilities and limitations of ALOS PALSAR data for monitoring the land subsidence that accompanies coal fires by means of satellite differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) observations. An approach to map the large and highly non-linear subsidence based on a small number of SAR images was applied to the Wuda coalfield to reveal the spatial and temporal signals of land subsidence in areas affected by coal fires. The DInSAR results agree well with coal fire data obtained from field investigations and thermal anomaly information, which demonstrates that the capability of ALOS PALSAR data and the proposed approach have remarkable potential to detect this land subsidence of interest. In addition, our results also provide a spatial extent and temporal evolution of the land subsidence behavior accompanying the coal fires, which indicated that several coal fire zones suffer accelerated ongoing land subsidence, whilst other coal fire zones are newly subsiding areas arising from coal fires in the period of development.
Highlights
Underground coal spontaneous combustion means that underground coal layers are burned by natural or artificial factors
Few research efforts using the differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) techniques have been carried out for coalfields to investigate the land subsidence related to underground coal fires. [21,22,23] tried to apply DInSAR techniques to detect land subsidence related to subsurface coal fires in ERS interferograms, covering the Ke-er Jian coalfield, the Wuda coalfield and the Ruqigou coalfield in Northern China, respectively. [24] tried to use a time series of 34 ENVISAT
This study describes an approach to map the large and highly non-linear subsidence induced by underground coal fires based on a small number of SAR images compared with the Permanent Scatterers InSAR (PSI) technique
Summary
Underground coal spontaneous combustion means that underground coal layers are burned by natural or artificial factors. Underground coal spontaneous combustion is a kind of natural disaster, which is a very serious problem in many countries in the world, such as the United. Very serious coal fires have occurred in coalfields in northern. Space-borne differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) has proven to be an effective technique for land subsidence measurement due to its precision, spatial coverage and resolution. Few research efforts using the DInSAR techniques have been carried out for coalfields to investigate the land subsidence related to underground coal fires. [21,22,23] tried to apply DInSAR techniques to detect land subsidence related to subsurface coal fires in ERS interferograms, covering the Ke-er Jian coalfield, the Wuda coalfield and the Ruqigou coalfield in Northern China, respectively. Few research efforts using the DInSAR techniques have been carried out for coalfields to investigate the land subsidence related to underground coal fires. [21,22,23] tried to apply DInSAR techniques to detect land subsidence related to subsurface coal fires in ERS interferograms, covering the Ke-er Jian coalfield, the Wuda coalfield and the Ruqigou coalfield in Northern China, respectively. [24] tried to use a time series of 34 ENVISAT
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