Prioritizing abandoned coal mine reclamation projects within the contiguous United States using geographic...

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
• Resource Management

Background:

• Coal mine reclamation is costly and requires careful resource identification and agency coordination.
• Identifying optimal locations for reclamation resources presents a significant spatial challenge.
• The Bark Camp reclamation project demonstrated the successful use of fly ash and dredged material.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a methodology for prioritizing potential coal mine reclamation sites using spatial data.
• To apply GIS analysis to identify areas suitable for reclamation projects similar to the Bark Camp example.
• To create a prioritized list of reclamation sites within the contiguous United States.

Main Methods:

• Utilized an extrapolation method based on the Bark Camp reclamation project.
• Integrated spatial data for four key elements: dredged material, abandoned mines, fly ash sources, and railroads.
• Employed GIS analysis to assess the co-occurrence of these elements within various radii (20-100 km) of abandoned mines.

Main Results:

• Identified unique occurrences of all four spatial elements across the United States territory.
• Quantified the number and locations of abandoned mines per state.
• Generated a prioritized list of potential mine reclamation sites based on resource proximity.

Conclusions:

• The GIS-based methodology effectively prioritizes areas for coal mine reclamation.
• Results provide valuable data for federal and state governments in planning cost-effective reclamation efforts.
• The study demonstrates the feasibility of replicating successful reclamation strategies through spatial analysis.