Abstract
Soil moisture is a critical parameter for land reclamation and ecological restoration in mining subsidence areas. However, limited research has been conducted into the impact of subsidence on soil moisture in semi-arid areas. In this study, the subsidence and soil moisture of four coal seams (4101 and 4102 coal seams are 2-year and 1-year subsidence area, 4103 and 4104 coal seams are just after mining and ready for mining) in semi-arid region were monitored for a year. A soil moisture retrieval method suitable for semi-arid mining areas was improved. The results showed that the reduced Bias, MRE and RMSE difference between satellite and in situ soil moisture to 0.129, 0.0851 and 0.0219, respectively, which demonstrated the reliability of the proposed soil moisture retrieval method in the semi-arid mining areas. We found that there was ecological self-restoration, the degree of spatial variability of soil moisture was gradually weaker with the increased subsidence time by comparing coal seams with different subsidence time. The average value of soil moisture in 4103 and 4104 coal seams decreased by 0.20% and 1.89%, respectively, whereas the coefficient of variation increased by 13.99% and 10.45%, respectively. Window cross-correlation analysis shows underground mining activities have a lag effect. The mean time lag between subsidence and the soil moisture response varied 90 days after the subsidence occurred. But, about 120 days after the end of mining, soil moisture gradually recovers. All these results indicated repair of land cracks in time at subsidence edge can prevent the decline of soil moisture.
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The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52274168). We acknowledge all researchers who contributed to monitor long-term subsidence and soil moisture. We also thank Shaanxi Binchang Mining Group Co., Ltd. for providing us with detailed mining data.
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The National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52274168).
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All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by TM, FT, JT, QY and XJ. The first draft of the manuscript was written by TM, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Appendix A
Appendix A
Table 3 is the detailed image data used in the paper. Table 4 is the parameter values of the soil moisture inversion model. Equations A1–A4 are soil moisture inversion accuracy parameters.
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Ma, T., Tang, F., Tang, J. et al. Effect of coal mining on soil moisture in the semi-arid area based on an improved remote sensing estimation approach. Environ Earth Sci 82, 545 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-023-11245-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-023-11245-y