Comprehensive landscape ecology stability assessment of a coal gangue backfill reclamation area

Abstract

The landscape of a coal gangue backfilling reclamation region in the Yang Quan First mine has experienced remarkable land backfilling reclamation over the past few decades. Effective management strategies are needed to protect the environment in these areas as well as the sustainable development of land resources. In this paper, a study of pattern change is proposed by using five landscape metrics and a stability analysis of features derived from land cover maps in order to investigate their magnitude and its comprehensive ecological stability in the gangue backfilling reclamation region between a separate time period (2000-14). The results illustrate that: - The artificial reclamation project disturbed the landscape so that patching and ecological stability has changed. - The vegetation landscape patch indices all decreased during the study period, showing that the reclamation had a greater impact on the vegetation. - The comprehensive index of ecological effects of landscape ecology was 0.3615, showing that the area’s landscape remained stable during the study period. - Backfill landscape stability is lowest, which indicates that landscape stability is mainly affected by human disturbance, while the influence of natural and semi natural landscapes is relatively low.