Time series estimation of soil erosion under mining subsidence in sandy area based on GIS/RS, inner Mongolia, China

The land subsidence caused by underground coal mining can lead to topographic change and cause a series of environmental problems such as soil erosion and vegetation degradation, etc. Research on the effects of soil erosion is of great significance to the ecological restoration and environmental protection of mining areas. This paper selected the Bulianta coal mine in Inner Mongolia as a research area. Based on GIS/RS technology, the change in the spatial patterns of soil erosion in the study area were quantitatively evaluated using the rule of mining subsidence and the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). The results show that underground coal mining has a significant effect on terrain by changing the slope length and slope steepness (LS), vegetation growth was also affected by a trend of overall reduction. In general, soil erosion in the Bulianta mining area generally showed an increasing trend from pre-mining topography to surface subsidence after mining, both from the perspective of soil erosion area and the perspective of soil erosion quantity.