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Spatio-temporal analysis of ground subsidence due to underground coal mining in Huainan coalfield, China

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Abstract

Underground coal mining produces ground subsidence that adversely impacts the environment. Huainan coalfield, one of the largest coalfields in East China, experiences fast ground subsidence that restricts agricultural, urban and rural developments in this region. We used stacking and the small baseline subset interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) techniques to perform a spatio-temporal analysis of ground subsidence in Huainan coalfield caused by underground coal mining activities. Fourteen L-band ALOS PALSAR images acquired during 2007–2010 were used to retrieve high-resolution and high-precision time series of ground deformation and the mean deformation rate. The results show that subsidence with a rate of up to 15 cm/year is widely spread over the studied area in response to mining operation. In regions where mining lasted for many years, ground subsidence continues at a steady rate during the entire observation period. In regions of recent (i.e., since 2007–2009) mining activities, ground subsidence is rapidly accelerating. Accumulated subsidence already caused submerging of the agriculture lands, limiting further mining activities and farming. The InSAR results are consistent with the ground leveling measurements and observations. It is confirmed that the L-band InSAR can be successfully utilized for mapping long-term subsidence in Huainan coalfield in China caused by underground coal mining activities.

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Notes

  1. Longwall Mining, http://www.umwa.org/?q=content/longwall-mining.

  2. GAMMA SAR processing software, http://www.gamma-rs.ch/software.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Key Technology R & D Program of China (No. 2012BAC10B02), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC: 41372353), China Scholarship Council (CSC) and Huainan Mining Group (No. HNKY-JT-JS-(2013)-004). The ALOS PALSAR data were provided by the Global Earth Observation Grid (GEO Grid, http://www.geogrid.org/en/index.html). ASTER GDEM was provided by METI and NASA. Images were plotted with GMT software. We would like to thank four anonymous reviewers for their comments that helped us improve our paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Shaochun Dong, Hongwei Yin & Suping Yao

  2. Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, ON, K1A0E4, Canada

    Shaochun Dong & Sergey Samsonov

  3. Huainan Mining (Group) Co., Ltd, Huainan, 232001, China

    Chong Xu

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  1. Shaochun Dong
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  2. Sergey Samsonov
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  3. Hongwei Yin
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  4. Suping Yao
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  5. Chong Xu
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Correspondence to Shaochun Dong.

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Dong, S., Samsonov, S., Yin, H. et al. Spatio-temporal analysis of ground subsidence due to underground coal mining in Huainan coalfield, China. Environ Earth Sci 73, 5523–5534 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-014-3806-4

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