Innovation for sustainable mining: Integrated planning of underground coal mining and mine reclamation

Coal supplies essential materials for social development. In many cases, however, the separation planning of underground coal mining (UCM) and mine reclamation (MR) and mining first, reclamation later lead to the accumulation of land degradation. Thus, the integrated planning of UCM and MR needs to be studied urgently. In this study, concurrent mining and reclamation (CMR) technologies were adopted to divide UCM planning into four key steps from the space-time scale: i) development roadway (macro); ii) preparation roadway (moderate); iii) panel roadway (meso) and iv) working face (micro), and the impacts of mining steps on MR were discussed. In addition, the requirements of four-key links of MR for UCM were discussed: i) reclamation elevation (RE); ii) digging depth (DD); iii) reclamation layout (RL), and iv) reclamation timing (RT). UCM and MR were optimized on macro, moderate, meso, and micro scales. Results show that: (1) RE and DD are moderate and meso scales; (2) RL is macro and moderate scales; (3) RT is meso and micro scales. Integrated planning of UCM and MR can reduce mining damage from the source, which can timely reclaim degraded land, and alleviate the contradictions of the government, colliery and farmer. We hope CMR will be valued to jointly improve application scenarios and guide sustainable mining.

Automated summary

The integrated planning of mining and reclamation is important for reducing land degradation and addressing conflicts. This study adopted concurrent mining and reclamation technologies to divide the planning into four key steps and discussed the impacts of mining on reclamation. The requirements of reclamation for mining were also discussed. The results showed that integrated planning can reduce damage, reclaim land in a timely manner, and alleviate conflicts.