scholarly journals WORKABLE MONITORING SYSTEM BASED ON SPACEBORNE SAR IMAGES FOR MINING AREAS - STINGS DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Author(s):  
C. H. Yang ◽  
A. Müterthies ◽  
U. Soergel

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Nowadays monitoring of mining areas, e.g., regarding dam stability, has become increasingly important with rising awareness of safety and environmental protection. An appropriate monitoring scheme is necessitated to legally activate, reactivate, or terminate mining operations. Usually such monitoring relies on in situ surveys, which are unrealistic to cover an extensive mining area. Alternatively, remote sensing based on spaceborne data offers efficient and cost-effective solutions for regular surveillance of large areas. Spaceborne SAR sensors provide images captured rapidly over vast areas at fine spatiotemporal resolution. These sensors are characterized by weather independent and day-and-night vision, which guarantees intensive image series without cloud occlusion. Using multi-temporal SAR images, advanced DInSAR such as PSI and SBAS is a mature technique to evaluate surface deformation at best millimetre level. This technique has been commercialized as a standard service in many Geoinformation companies. Nevertheless, experts from other fields like mining engineers often doubt the information about movement derived from DInSAR. Our duty in industry is to solve these doubts and tailor our techniques for various applications. With the support of STINGS project, we have developed an initial prototype of our monitoring system. The final goal is to launch an interactive GIS-based platform as an early warning system to the public. In this paper, we demonstrate our initial test result using Sentinel-1 images at a mining site in Chile. We also propose the strategies to solve the problems in real applications and discuss how to improve the overall quality.</p>

Author(s):  
Ling Zhang ◽  
Daqing Ge ◽  
Xiaofang Guo ◽  
Bin Liu ◽  
Man Li ◽  
...  

Abstract. Land subsidence can be caused by underground mining activities. Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) has became an economic, effective and accurate technique for land deformation survey and monitoring. In mining areas, there may be several factors to overcome for the succsessful application of InSAR, such as temporal decorrelation and detectable deformation gradient, that limit the ability of InSAR to monitoring rapid land subsidence. In this paper, images obtained by the Sentinel-1 satellite with 6 or 12 d revisiting time are used to improve the ability to detect a deformation gradient, and reduce the influence of temporal decorrelation. By combining Small Baseline Subsets (SBAS) and Interferometric Point Target Analysis (IPTA) methods, using the Nanhu mining area in Tangshan as an example, the spatial continuous results of land subsidence in this mining area are obtained with a 70 cm per year maximum rate, which clearly characterizes the deformation field and its deformation process. The results show that InSAR is a useful way to monitor land subsidence in a mining area and provides further data for environment mine restoration.


Author(s):  
C. H. Yang ◽  
Y. Pang ◽  
U. Soergel

Monitoring urban changes is important for city management, urban planning, updating of cadastral map, etc. In contrast to conventional field surveys, which are usually expensive and slow, remote sensing techniques are fast and cost-effective alternatives. Spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors provide radar images captured rapidly over vast areas at fine spatiotemporal resolution. In addition, the active microwave sensors are capable of day-and-night vision and independent of weather conditions. These advantages make multi-temporal SAR images suitable for scene monitoring. Persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI) detects and analyses PS points, which are characterized by strong, stable, and coherent radar signals throughout a SAR image sequence and can be regarded as substructures of buildings in built-up cities. Attributes of PS points, for example, deformation velocities, are derived and used for further analysis. Based on PSI, a 4D change detection technique has been developed to detect disappearance and emergence of PS points (3D) at specific times (1D). In this paper, we apply this 4D technique to the centre of Berlin, Germany, to investigate its feasibility and application for construction monitoring. The aims of the three case studies are to monitor construction progress, business districts, and single buildings, respectively. The disappearing and emerging substructures of the buildings are successfully recognized along with their occurrence times. The changed substructures are then clustered into single construction segments based on DBSCAN clustering and α-shape outlining for object-based analysis. Compared with the ground truth, these spatiotemporal results have proven able to provide more detailed information for construction monitoring.


Complexity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Jiaqi Jin ◽  
Chicheng Yan ◽  
Yixuan Tang ◽  
Yilong Yin

Along with the accelerated shift of coal mining to the ecologically fragile west, the contradiction between coal resource development and ecological protection in the western arid and semiarid coal mining areas is rapidly intensifying. Based on the above background, this thesis takes the coal mining area in the arid and semiarid regions as an example; applies the theories of ecology, coal mining subsidence, geodesy, and ecological restoration; uses remote sensing in synthetic aperture radar (SAR), geographic information system (GIS), and mathematical modelling to reveal the ecological evolution law of the mining area; measures the ecological damage of the mining area; and then proposes a reasonable ecological restoration strategy. The surface deformation monitoring study in the study area shows that on the whole, some areas in the study area have different degrees of surface subsidence disasters, and the maximum surface subsidence value exceeds 800 mm. From the distribution of surface subsidence in the study area, surface subsidence disasters mainly occur in the eastern and central mountainous areas rich in coal resources, as well as in the mining areas west of the Yellow River, and the subsidence basins are distributed in a series of irregular concentric ovals. In terms of the scale of surface subsidence in the study area, a total of 230.03 km2 of land in the study area showed surface subsidence hazards during the monitoring period, accounting for 13.78% of the total area of the study area, of which the area of severe subsidence was 44.98 km2 (2.69%). The area of more serious subsidence area is 101.33 km2 (6.07%), and the area affected by subsidence is 83.72 km2 (5.01%).


Author(s):  
Aleksander KOWALSKI ◽  
Krzysztof MACIEJAK

During mapping work carried out since October 2015 in the Nowy Kościół area in the Kaczawskie Foothills, Western Sudetes, a number of morphological forms were identified and catalogued. They indicate surface transformation due to ceased mining activity. Several depressions and grabens were recognized during the digital terrain model and satellite images analysis. The range of deformation has been determined, and their spatial parameters and the maximal depression of the ground level within the mining area have been estimated and described. Such ground level depressions have not been examined in detail before. The main aim of the studies was to determine the usefulness of geomorphometric methods based on LiDAR digital elevation models (DEM) for the purposes of high quality description of surface deformation caused by underground mining operations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 174 ◽  
pp. 01003
Author(s):  
Eugene Plotnikov ◽  
Valery Kolesnikov ◽  
Zuzana Šimková ◽  
Nuray Demirel

At a number of large open pit mines in Kuzbass, coal production costs have increased due to the deepening of mining operations. In order to reduce them, separate sections of coal mining at the upper horizons are operating or are being designed for mining at low current stripping ratio. For the same purpose, open-pit mining areas at the fields of existing quarries are operated and designed. Examples of such existing and projected areas are: the “Complex Synclinal” area at the Krasnobrodsky surface mine; the “Prirezka” area at the Chernigovsky surface mine; a number open-pit areas at the underground mines; etc. The main factors complicating the involvement in the development of new sites are: the presence of residential areas, industrial buildings and structures near the boundaries of the mining area; power supply lines, transport communications, which limits or excludes the production of mass explosions in the preparation of overburden for excavation; limited size or lack of areas for external dumps at a short distance from the site (in some cases, it is possible to close the mined-out space of the worked-out quarry field). When designing the development of areas characterized by such conditions, it is necessary to consider the application of new technical and technological solutions.


Author(s):  
J. Zhang

Abstract. InSAR has developed a variety of methods, such as D-InSAR, PS-InSAR, MBAS, CT, SqueeSAR, POT, etc., which have been widely used in land subsidence monitoring. For open pit mining areas, there are usually mining activity, complex terrain features, low coherence, and local large deformation gradients, which makes it difficult for time series InSAR technology to obtain high-density surface deformation information in open pit mining areas. Traditional methods usually only monitor the linear deformation of the surface caused by the mining of a few working zone above the underground mining area, and the temporal and spatial resolution is lower. How to obtain high-precision, high-density, and time-sensitive deformation information is the main difficulty of InSAR monitoring in open pit mining areas. Make full use of the geosensor network monitoring system, optimize monitoring mode of collaborated satellite-to-ground based InSAR, further realize whole calculation and geographic information services, to achieve early identification and discovery of abnormal in large-area macro-monitoring, and accurate monitoring of local areas in real-time early warning, which is the development direction of ground deformation monitoring of mining areas. The study area is Pingshuo open pit mining area. we fully study the application mode and services of InSAR monitoring for geohazards in open-pit mining area, through the establishment of satellite InSAR technology system for large-scale macro-monitoring and forecasting, and GBSAR and GSN for local precision monitoring. The effective mode of InSAR monitoring of geohazard in open-pit mines is summarized. A combination of D-InSAR, POT (Pixel offset tracking), Time Series-InSAR and GB-SAR is used in a wide range, and high-resolution optical images are used to identify localized changes in subsidence areas and open-pit mining areas.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1203 (3) ◽  
pp. 032021
Author(s):  
Beata Parkasiewicz ◽  
Marta Kadela

Abstract Underground mining brings benefits in the form of the extracted mineral. The negative effects of mining exploration are deformations of the rock mass, which also cause deformations on the ground surface. There are continuous deformations, discontinuous deformations and mining-induced tremors. Recommendations regarding the protection of the structure of cubature building against the negative effect of mining operations are discussed in detail, for example, in the recommendation published by the Building Research Institute (ITB) in Warsaw. In the case of road structures, the situation is different. Firstly, there are no general rules that would provide clear guidelines for the procedure for designing road pavement in mining areas, similarly to cubature buildings. Secondly, in the computer programs used for the individual design of road pavement, it is not possible to assign additional actions, including mining impact. Therefore, in order to analyze the behavior of the pavement-mining subsoil system, an advanced numerical analyze should be carried out. In this case, the subsoil thickness, the boundary conditions and the constitutive relationships of the materials of the road pavement layers and subsoil should be determined. This paper presents an attempt to select kinematic boundary conditions for the FEM model of the road pavement-mining subsoil system, analogically to the model of the building-mining subsoil system. The paper is aimed at assessment of the influence of kinematic boundary conditions selection on the criterial values that are taken into account during the design process of road pavement using mechanistic methods. For this purpose, three cases were considered: (i) horizontal mining strain (εdesign ), (ii) curvature of surface (Kdesign ), (iii) combined impact of these actions. In these cases, each time vehicle wheel load was assumed. Based on the analyzes, the computational horizontal strain of the mining area εcomp is decisive when assessing the criterial values taken into account in the design process of road pavement structures.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (22) ◽  
pp. 7712
Author(s):  
Yaokun Fu ◽  
Jianxuan Shang ◽  
Zhenqi Hu ◽  
Pengyu Li ◽  
Kun Yang ◽  
...  

An observatory was established at the Ningtiaota Mine (China) in order to investigate the surface deformation pattern of N00 method workings mining in shallow buried thick coal seams in a windy-sand area. The observatory allows one to measure the coupling between the periodic changes of parameters related to ground subsidence and ground cracks with workings advancement. The data monitored in the field indicate that when the adjacent mining workings are mined below the ground, a sinkhole basin with a larger impact area will be formed. New ground fractures are formed above the mining area to connect with the fractures above the mining face. As a consequence a new pattern of “O” circle distribution beyond the working face is formed, which develops rapidly during the working face recovery. In addition, the dynamic fractures in coal mining are characterized by the phenomenon of self-healing. Our findings will help to protect the surface environment of the mine area during shallow buried high-intensity mining activities in the Lime Tower coal mine, and are also an important guideline in other windy beach mining areas.


Minerals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 1157
Author(s):  
Xiaozhen Wang ◽  
Weibing Zhu ◽  
Jianlin Xie ◽  
Hongkai Han ◽  
Jingmin Xu ◽  
...  

Water outbursts and rock bursts often occur during the mining of coal seams under water-rich sandstone strata with thicknesses exceeding 50 m, otherwise called ultrathick-and-hard strata (UTHS), which are common throughout the mining areas of northwestern China. It is important to understand the behaviors of their movement and the evolution of their internal fractures to inform the formulation of effective disaster prevention. Due to the presence of the Luohe Formation UTHS in the overburden of the Tingnan Coal Mine in the Binchang mining area and the powerful mining-induced pressure (MIP) events that occurred during the excavation of Panel #2, the internal strata movement of the overburden and the evolution of its fractures were monitored in situ by fiber optic and multipoint borehole extensometers (MPBX) during the excavation of Working Face #207. It was found that a large number of ring-shaped fractures were observed at 24.8–81 m above the lower boundary of the Luohe Formation—in areas above the goaf of Working Face #206—before Working Face #207 was mined. When Working Face #207 was mined, the fractures that were originally located in the deep strata of the Luohe Formation started to close and migrate towards shallow strata. Crack closure and migration were also observed during the monitoring of internal strata movement. Furthermore, the final displacements of Y1-1-1#, Y1-2-2#, and Y1-2-3# relative to the surface were 77, 248, and 134 mm, which were very small relative to the surface subsidence of 1380 mm. It was found that mining-induced perturbations caused the Luohe Formation UTHS to subside continuously and no risk of a large and sudden break would occur in the Luohe Formation UTHS during the mining of Working Face #207. The results of this study provide important data for the safety of mining operations at Working Face #207, which were validated by microseismic monitoring during the mining of it.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 4485
Author(s):  
Lili Wang ◽  
Liao Yang ◽  
Weisheng Wang ◽  
Baili Chen ◽  
Xiaolin Sun

Long-term continuous monitoring of the mining activities in open-pit coal mines is conducive to planning and management of the mining operations. Additionally, this faciliatates assessment on their environmental impact and supervises illegal mining behaviors. Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technology can be effectively applied in the monitoring of open-pit mines where vegetation is sparse and land cover is dominated by bare rock. The main objective of this study is to monitor the mining activities of four open-pit coal mines in the Wucaiwan mining area in China from 2018 to 2020, namely No. 1, No. 2 (containing two mining areas), and No. 3. We use the normalized differential activity index (NDAI) based on the coherence coefficient as an indicator of the mine activity due to its robustness to temporal and spatial decorrelation. After analyzing and removing the decorrelation caused by rain and snow weather, 70 NDAI images in 12-day intervals are obtained from Sentinel-1A InSAR coherence images. Then, the annually-averaged NDAI images are applied to an RGB composite technique (red for 2018, green for 2019, blue for 2020) to express the interannual variation of the mining activities. Points of interest are then selected for NDAI time series analysis. The RGB composite results indicated that No. 1 and 3 open-pit coal mines were continuously mined during the three years; whereas, the two mining areas of No. 2 were mainly active in 2018. The 12-day NDAI time-series graphs of No. 2 open-pit coal mine also indicate that the coal piles located in the coal transferring area of the first mining area were not completely removed until April 2019. It is also seen that the second mining area was decommissioned in November 2018 and became rehabilitated in July 2019. Results were validated using the Sentinel-2A images and related background information confirming the efficiency of the proposed approach for monitoring the mining activity in open-pit mines.


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