Land Cover and Environmental Changes in Two Chinese Open-Pit Coal Mines, 1986-2023

Spatio-temporal analysis of vegetation cover, coal dust, soil erosion, and land classification for the Antalbao and Anjlaling open-pit coal mining areas in China. The dataset is derived from Landsat imagery spanning 1986 to 2023 and uses Theil-Sen median and Mann-Kendall trend tests. It was created by Linquan Qiao and published on figshare in 2026 under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Modeling vegetation recovery trends in mining areas based on the described vegetation cover time series.
• Analyzing the relationship between mining activity (e.g., coal faces, transport roads) and coal dust dispersion as indicated in the description.
• Assessing soil erosion dynamics and its response to changes in production capacity, such as the 2008 expansion mentioned.
• Tracking land class trajectory changes, specifically the conversion of farmland and grassland to impervious surfaces.
• Providing a reference case for evaluating green mining policies and climate change mitigation strategies in extractive industries.

Strengths

• Covers a 37-year time series from 1986 to 2023, providing long-term trend analysis.
• Analyzes multiple environmental variables: vegetation cover, coal dust, soil erosion, and land classification.
• Focuses on two specific, named mining areas (Antalbao and Anjlaling) for detailed case study.
• Applies established statistical methods (Theil-Sen median and Mann-Kendall trend tests) for robust change detection.

Limitations

• The dataset is very small (110.7 KB), suggesting it may contain summary or processed results rather than raw imagery.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for certain modeling tasks.

Provenance

Source

Linquan Qiao, via figshare.

Collection Method

Analysis based on Landsat imagery and land classification data.

Time Range

1986 to 2023

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-22 08:30:26; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Antalbao and Anjlaling mining areas in China.