The Effects of Coal Mining on Land Use and Land Surface Temperature: A Case Study of Korba District, Chhattisgarh

Abstract

Coal is one of the most important mineral which is used as a fuel for generating energy in India, with the increasing urbanization and industrialization, need for more fuel is increasing resulting in extraction of coal in more and more amount, therefore in order to fulfil the demand, mining activities has increased a lot with time, besides the extraction of coal, many other minerals are also being extracted for various purposes as well. Increase in such mining activities are leading to adverse change in air, water and land quality, changes in land use land cover pattern and variation in surface temperature, these continuous changes are therefore, im-portant to be studied in order to assess its impact on the environment for suture sustainability and better management of available resources. The current study has been done for the Korba district with special attention towards the mining areas as major area of the district after agricultural and cultivation land is occupied with mining area and related industries which is on spreading at higher pace since last many years, due to which variation in surface temperature and changes in land use pattern can be seen in its vicinity which is increasing with the time. According to the shifting patterns of land use and land cover, both urban regions and coal mine areas have grown by roughly 35 and 12%, respectively. In the central area of Korba district, the number of mines has risen, and the mining area has expanded over the last thirty years. Through a temporal analysis of the data, the study found that between 2000 and 2021, both the mining zones and adjacent urban areas witnessed increased temperatures. This temperature rise can be linked to the expansion of mining operations and the deforestation that accompanies such activities.

Keywords: LULC, remote sensing, GIS, coal mining, land surface temperature, robust statistics, Korba