Assessing Impacts of Mining Activities on Land Use/Land Cover Change Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques: A Case Study in Campha City, Vietnam

Abstract

Coal is one of the most mining commodities to date, especially to supply both national and international energy needs. Coal mining activities that are not well managed will have an impact on the occurrence of environmental damage. The present study was undertaken to analyze the process of human-induced landscape transformation in the coal mines affected areas of Cam Pha, northeast Vietnam by interpreting temporal remote sensing data and using Geographic Information System. This experiment revealed that most of the study area was dominated by forest in all the time sequence period. The forest cover has decreased about 21.3%, meanwhile having nine fold increase in mining area from 1990 to 2020. The forest area lost during the study period was 7983.45 ha due to land cover conversion into mining area. The mining activities were also detrimental to the bare land and water body cover. The results of this study are expected to be used to support government efforts and mining managers in post-mining coal activities.