Abstract
Over the last few years, under the combined effects of climate change and human factors, the ecological environment of coal mining areas has undergone tremendous changes. Therefore, the rapid and accurate quantitative assessments of the temporal and spatial evolution of the ecological environment quality is of great significance for the ecological restoration and development planning of coal mining areas. This study applied the ecological environment index after topographic correction to improve the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI). Based on a series of Landsat images, the ecological environment quality of Yangquan Coal Mine in Shanxi Province from 1987 to 2020 was monitored and evaluated by an improved remote sensing ecological index. The results show that after topographic correction, the topographic effect of the remote sensing ecological index was greatly reduced, and its practicability was improved. From 1987 to 2020, the ecological environment quality of Yangquan Coal Mine was improved, and the mean of the RSEI increased from 0.4294 to 0.6379. The ecological environment quality of the six coal mines in the study area was improved. Among the six coal gangue dumps, the ecological environmental quality of D1, D2, D3, and D4 has improved, and the ecological environment quality of D5 and D6 worsened. The percentages of improved, unchanged, and degraded ecological environment quality in the entire coal mining area were 77.08%, 0.99%, and 21.93%, respectively. The global Moran’s index was between 0.7929 and 0.9057, and it was shown that there was a strong positive correlation between the ecological environmental qualities of the study area, and that its spatial distribution was clustered rather than random. The LISA cluster map showed that the aggregation and dispersion degree of ecological environment quality was mainly high–high clustering and low–low clustering over the whole stage. During the study period, temperature and precipitation had limited impacts on the ecological environment quality of Yangquan Coal Mine, while the coal mining activities and urbanization construction seriously affected the local ecological environment quality and the implementation of ecological restoration policies, regulations, and measures was the main reason for the improvement of the ecological environment quality.
Highlights
Coal is the most important mineral resource in China and has made great contributions to China’s economic development and social progress
By 1998, the mean of the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) had increased to 0.5059, and the total area with a good or excellent ecological environment quality was almost equal to the total area with poor and fair ecological environment quality; these were 35.15% and
This study introduced a topographic correction model to optimize the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) and used the optimized remote sensing ecological index to comprehensively evaluate and analyze the temporal and spatial evolution of the ecological environment quality of Yangquan Coal Mine from 1987 to 2020
Summary
Coal is the most important mineral resource in China and has made great contributions to China’s economic development and social progress. In 2020, China’s raw coal production was 3.9 billion tons and coal consumption accounted for 56.8% of its total primary energy consumption. The surface subsidence area caused by coal mining in China is up to 1.35 × 104 km and increases at a the rate of 700 km per year, while the ecological restoration rate of coal mining subsidence is only about 35% [7]. As the solid waste attached to coal production, more than 6 billion tons of coal gangue have accumulated, and this is increasing at a rate of 795 million tons per year, but the comprehensive utilization rate is lower than 30% [8].
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