Coal Mining Highwall Features in Central Appalachia with LiDAR and Cost Estimates

Alana Lutz created a dataset of 3,972 highwall segments from surface coal mining in Central Appalachia. The data was generated using a LiDAR-based remote sensing workflow on USGS 3D Elevation Program data across 55 counties in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia. It includes polygon geometries and attributes for estimating reclamation costs and was last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Estimate highwall elimination costs based on extracted height and length geometries.
• Assess reclamation bond coverage sufficiency based on spatial assignment to mining permits.
• Map and analyze the distribution of hazardous mining features across Central Appalachia.
• Validate remote sensing workflows for steep-slope feature detection using high-resolution imagery.

Strengths

• Contains 3,972 manually verified highwall segments.
• Geometries are delineated at 1-meter resolution.
• Covers a specific region of 55 counties across three states.
• Data is openly licensed under CC-BY-4.0.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the underlying data is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the selected Central Appalachian region.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Alana Lutz.

Collection Method

LiDAR-based remote sensing workflow using USGS 3D Elevation Program DEMs, with manual verification via high-resolution imagery.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-01 18:06:04; freshness should be verified.

Geography

55 counties in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia (Central Appalachia, USA).