Impact of Mining on Vegetated Landscapes
Impact of Mining on Vegetated Landscapes
This work is Australian Coal Association Research Project C15013. Monitoring the effect of longwall mining on native vegetation and agricultural environments.
Currently there is a lack of understanding of the effect of longwall mining on vegetated landscapes. It is likely that effects will vary depending on local environmental conditions (e.g. soil, topography, vegetation type, geology) and may vary even within a single longwall site.
We aim to develop a set of techniques to monitor the effects of longwall mine subsidence on vegetated landscapes. Importantly, the techniques will be designed to provide objective and rigorous information that satisfies both industry and community priorities. The final phase of the project will be to extend the techniques to key stakeholders through a series of workshops.
The project will develop and apply remote sensing-based condition assessment techniques across a range of vegetation types in longwall mining areas to quantify subsidence impact. Rigorous on-ground monitoring coupled with the relevant remote sensing and GIS technologies will be trialled for several seasons to validate the use of these techniques. By using multiple scales (ground-based samples, on-ground remote sensing, airborne remote sensing and satellite remote sensing) the project will develop the optimal sampling intensity for the monitoring procedure.
