Abstract
Opencast (coal) mining activities significantly affect the society and environment in several aspects, including land-useland-cover (LULC) alteration. The present study aims to quantify the alteration in LULC patterns in every 4 year from 2006 to 2018 in the Jharsuguda coal mining region in Odisha, India. The study has used the multitemporal Landsat series satellite data for LULC classification. A support vector machine algorithm was designed for LULC classifications into five broad classes, viz. water body, mining area, forest/vegetation area, bare land, and built-up area. The key findings of the study indicated that the coverage of mining area was gradually increased from 2006 to 2018 with an annual change rate of + 0.03%. On the other hand, a significant loss in the forest cover/vegetation was observed with the annual change rate of − 0.04% from 2006 to 2018. The remarkable increment in the coverage of bare land area was also noted during the study period. The mining activity has posed a serious threat to the forest resources over the study region. Hence, a proper management policy for mine reclamation should be practised over the Jharsuguda coal mining region to protect the forest, environment, and society.
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