Modeling impacts of mining activity-induced landscape change on local climate

As a major energy source, coal has been mined on an increasingly larger scale as the social economy has continuously developed, resulting in drastic land type changes. These changes in turn cause changes in the local climate and affect the local ecological environment. Therefore, for coal cities, mining activities are an important factor influencing the local climate, and clarifying the impact of mining activities on the ecological environment is important for guiding regional development. In this paper, the impact of land use/cover changes (LUCCs) on local temperature in the spring and summer seasons from 1980 to 2018 was simulated using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with Xilinhot city as the study area, and the regional distribution of local surface energy was analyzed in conjunction with the ground-air energy transfer process. The results show that the grassland area in Xilinhot remained above 85% from 1980 to 2018, so mining activities had a small impact on the average temperature of the whole region. However, in the mining area, the warming effect caused by mining activities was more obvious, with an average temperature increase of 0.822 K. Among other land transformation types, the conversion to water bodies had a very obvious cooling effect, lowering the temperature by an average of 2.405 K. By comparing the latent heat flux (LH), sensible heat flux (SH), and ground heat flux (GRD) under different land use types, it was found that in 2018, the LH decreased by 0.487 W/m(2), the SH decreased by 0.616 W/m(2), and the GRD decreased by 0.753 W/m(2). The conversion to built-up urban land caused a significant decrease in the LH in the corresponding area, allowing more energy to be used to increase SH values, which resulted in significantly higher urban temperatures than in other areas.

Automated summary

Coal mining activities have led to drastic changes in land types, resulting in impacts on local climate and ecological environment. This study, using the WRF model, simulated the impact of land use/cover changes on local temperature in Xilinhot city from 1980 to 2018. The results showed that mining activities had a small impact on the average temperature of the whole region, but a significant warming effect in the mining area. Additionally, the conversion to water bodies had a cooling effect, while the conversion to built-up urban land increased urban temperatures.