Environmental Change Detection Study in the Wider Area of Lignite Mines

Environmental monitoring of mine areas offers critical information about how they affect both natural and man-made environment. The Ptolemaida-Amyntaio lignite center plays a very important role in electrical industry of Greece, since it is the main energy fuel. The spatial growth of the lignite mine causes land cover change in the wider area. This paper aims to detect land cover changes in the wider area of the mines, in northwestern Greece, between two time periods using Remote Sensing and Geoinformation system (RS and GIS) methods. For this purpose multispectral images for both times were acquired, from Landsat data and a supervised classification was applied. Finally, qualitative and quantitative results obtained through visual interpretation and digital change detection study indicate that there has been a great increase in mine areas, affecting both agricultural land and man-made environment.