ArticlePloS one2018
Mapping the yearly extent of surface coal mining in Central Appalachia using Landsat and Google Earth Engine.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- Exploratory Ecology of Reintroduced Elk in Virginia.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Multiscale Resource Selection for a Reintroduced Elk Population.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- The occurrence and persistence of surface water contaminants across different landscapes.The Science of the total environment · 2025Article
- Tracking Progress Toward Urban Nature Targets Using Landcover and Vegetation Indices: A Global Study for the 96 C40 Cities.GeoHealth · 2024Article
- Mountaintop removal coal mining impacts on structural and functional indicators in Central Appalachian streams.Frontiers in water · 2023Article
- Drivers of habitat quality for a reintroduced elk herd.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Transforming Social Determinants to Educational Outcomes: Geospatial Considerations.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Associations Between Surface Mining Airsheds and Birth Outcomes in Central Appalachia at Multiple Spatial Scales.GeoHealth · 2022Article
- Characterizing Time-Series Roving Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Activities in Indonesia Using Sentinel-1 Data.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Maternal proximity to mountain-top removal mining and birth defects in Appalachian Kentucky, 1997-2003.PloS one · 2022Article
- Comparison of benthic macroinvertebrate assessment methods along a salinity gradient in headwater streams.Environmental monitoring and assessment · 2021Article
- Detection of Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Activities and Their Transformation Using Earth Observation, Nighttime Light, and Precipitation Data.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Time-Series Assessment of Camp-Type Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Sectors with Large Influxes of Miners Using LANDSAT Imagery.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Maternal proximity to Central Appalachia surface mining and birth outcomes.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2021Article
- Linking mountaintop removal mining to water quality for imperiled species using satellite data.PloS one · 2021Article
- Variation in stream network relationships and geospatial predictions of watershed conductivity.Freshwater science (Print) · 2020Article
- Using residential histories in case-control analysis of lung cancer and mountaintop removal coal mining in Central Appalachia.Spatial and spatio-temporal epidemiology · 2020Article
- Increased Dementia Mortality in West Virginia Counties with Mountaintop Removal Mining?International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- Assessment of mining impacts on environment in Muğla-Aydın (SW Turkey) using Landsat and Google Earth imagery.Environmental monitoring and assessment · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Surface mining for coal has taken place in the Central Appalachian region of the United States for well over a century, with a notable increase since the 1970s. Researchers have quantified the ecosystem and health impacts stemming from mining, relying in part on a geospatial dataset defining surface mining's extent at a decadal interval. This dataset, however, does not deliver the temporal resolution necessary to support research that could establish causal links between mining activity and environmental or public health and safety outcomes, nor has it been updated since 2005. Here we use Google Earth Engine and Landsat imagery to map the yearly extent of surface coal mining in Central Appalachia from 1985 through 2015, making our processing models and output data publicly available. We find that 2,900 km2 of land has been newly mined over this 31-year period. Adding this more-recent mining to surface mines constructed prior to 1985, we calculate a cumulative mining footprint of 5,900 km2. Over the study period, correlating active mine area with historical surface mine coal production shows that each metric ton of coal is associated with 12 m2 of actively mined land. Our automated, open-source model can be regularly updated as new surface mining occurs in the region and can be refined to capture mining reclamation activity into the future. We freely and openly offer the data for use in a range of environmental, health, and economic studies; moreover, we demonstrate the capability of using tools like Earth Engine to analyze years of remotely sensed imagery over spatially large areas to quantify land use change.
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