Remote sensing of vegetation fraction for monitoring reclamation dynamics: A case study in Pingshuo Mining area

Mining activities has caused long-term change in land surface and hydrological cycle. Accurate information of vegetation structure is important for assessing how mining activities affect ecosystem in mining areas. A remote sensing method based on vegetation cover monitoring and assessment by using Landsat data sets with the temporal coverage from 1989 to 2015 was presented and applied to the Pingshuo Coal Mining (PSM) area. We the monitored reclaimed vegetation variation through analyzing time series data of vegetation indices. To find the most suitable VIs for monitoring reclamation areas, we evaluated correlations between different vegetation indices and field vegetation fraction. The results showed that EVI, NDVI, PVI, RVI and TVI were significant positive correlation with field vegetation fraction, proving these vegetation indices were the sufficient tools to monitor revegetation. Most of the dumps were recovered with vegetation in PSM and the health of vegetation after long time reclamation was better than that in the natural environment.