Remote Sensing Vegetation Reclamation on Surface Mines in Appalachia: A Case Study on Hobet Mine in West Virginia Público
Gondalia, Rahul (2012)
Published
Abstract
Background: Surface mining in Appalachia has been a large
contributor to land-use
change in the region. Under the Surface Mining Control and
Reclamation Act of 1977
(SMCRA), mine operators assume responsibility to reclaim affected
lands post-mining.
Evaluating vegetation reclamation is especially important in this
region because of its
rich biodiversity and the ecosystem services provided.
Aims: The aims of this study were to: 1) monitor temporal
changes of vegetation
productivity from 1984 to 2010 in specific areas of interest on
Hobet Mine and 2)
evaluate whether vegetation productivity in mining-permitted lands
have properly
recovered the vegetation to equal or greater productivity to
natural vegetation cover.
Methods: Satellite imagery of Hobet Mine from 1984 to 2010
was collected from the
Thematic Mapper sensor on Landsat 5. ENVI was used to calculate the
Normalized
Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for each usable dataset in a
Reference Area of
Interest (AOI) and three mining-permitted AOIs. ANOVA and Tukey's
Studentized
Range Test was used to determine if mean NDVI values between and
within three
benchmark periods (in June of 1986, 1996, and 2007) and AOIs were
significantly
different. Finally, Minimum Distance Supervised Classification of
the benchmark NDVI
images was used to classify dense vegetation, sparse vegetation,
and barren, mined lands
over the study region and four AOIs.
Results: From 1984 to 2010, the maximum mean NDVI values in the
Reference AOI
were mostly over 0.60. After mining, NDVI values in the three
mining-permitted AOIs
increased from 0 and appeared to stabilized below 0.60. By 2007,
there was a significant
difference between the mean NDVI in the Reference AOI and those in
the mining-
permitted AOIs. Classification results showed that vegetation
recovery occurred on
approximately 50% of the land in the mining-permitted AOIs.
Conclusion: While vegetation productivity on mined lands
increased and approached
that of natural vegetation cover, the trajectory of increase tended
to stabilize significantly
below. Moreover, classification results suggest that only around
half of mined areas were
restored to equal or greater vegetation productivity. These results
have significant
implications on the loss of ecosystem services due to surface
mining in Appalachia.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
..........................................................1
Background
.............................................................1
Coal Mining in
Appalachia
...........................................2
Regulation
..............................................................3
Reclamation in
Practice
.............................................4
Study Objectives
.....................................................6
Methods
...............................................................7
Study Site
.............................................................7
Remotely Sensed Data
Acquisition .............................11
Data Quality
..........................................................13
Data Processing using
ENVI ......................................14
Pre-processing
.......................................................14
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
.....................15
Land Cover Classification
.........................................19
Results and Discussion
.........................................22
Aim 1
...................................................................22
Reference AOI
.......................................................22
Permit Area of Interest 1
.........................................26
Permit Area of Interest 2
.........................................29
Permit Area of Interest 3
.........................................33
Permit AOIs versus Reference AOI
.............................37
Aim 2
...................................................................41
Hobet Mine Land Cover Classification
.........................41
AOI Land Cover Classification
...................................43
Summary
..............................................................48
Limitations
............................................................49
Conclusion
..........................................................51
References
.........................................................53
Appendix
............................................................56
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