Abstract
The coal development zone of Northern Shaanxi, China is one of the eight largest coal mines in the world, also the national energy and chemical bases. However, the coal mining leads to ground surface deformation and previous studies show that in collapse fissure zone soil water losses almost 50% compared with non-fissure zone. The main objective of this study is to develop a retrieval model that is reliable and sensitive to soil moisture in the whole coal mining zone of Northern Shaanxi based upon the soil sample parameters collected from <i>in situ</i> site investigation, spectral data gathered simultaneously and the images of Landsat7 ETM. The model uses different phases of Landsat data to retrieve soil moisture and analyze the patterns of spatial and temporal variations of soil moisture caused by ground deformation in the coal mining areas. The study indicated that band4 of Landsat7 ETM is the most sensitive band for soil moisture retrieval using the spectrum method. The quadratic model developed by remote sensing reflectance (Rrs4) (corresponding to the band4) is the best pattern with the correlation coefficient of 0.858 between the observed and the estimated soil moisture. Two-phase Landsat7 ETM data of 2002 and 2009 and one phase Landsat8 OLI data of 2015 for the study area were selected to retrieve soil moisture information. The result showed that the mean relative error was 35.16% and the root-mean-squared error (RMSE) was 0.58%. The changes of the spatial distribution of inversed soil moisture revealed that the trend of soil moisture contents of the study area was in general being gradually reduced from 2002 to 2015. The study results can serve as the baseline for monitoring environmental impacts on soil moisture in the regions due to coal mining.
Highlights
The moisture storage in soil – vadose zone is the important components of natural water cycles, which has a close relationship with water - soil - plant system and plays an important role for the healthy development of ecological environment
The major objective of this study is to develop a retrieval model that is acceptable to estimate soil moisture quickly in the whole coal mining zone of Northern of Shaanxi based upon the soil sample parameters collected from the field, spectral data gathered simultaneously and the different phase Landsat7 and Landsat8 data, analyze the patterns of spatial and temporal variations of soil moisture caused by ground deformation in the coal mining areas
The correlation analysis between measured soil moisture and RS reflectance showed that near-infrared band was the sensitive band for soil moisture retrieval in coal mining area of Northern Shaanxi
Summary
The moisture storage in soil – vadose zone is the important components of natural water cycles, which has a close relationship with water - soil - plant system and plays an important role for the healthy development of ecological environment. Because the main aquifer is located above the coal seam, the free mining space is shaped after the coal mining with the rock masses moving and deformation around the space. This situation will spread from the overlying seam to the surface and causes subsidence, cracks in ground surface. Soil water losses almost 50% (Song, 2007) compared with non-fissure zone. As a result, it directly affects the plant growth and leads to the ecological environment destruction. The study on monitoring soil moisture in coal mining zone is enormously significant, for the restoration and protection of local ecological environment
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