This paper presents a case study of Daye, Hubei, China, to trace the mining activities and related environment changes during the past 10 years, with an emphasis on land cover changes. Three sets of satellite data have been used in this case study: TM (ETM+), SPOT-5 and QuickBird image data. A multi-temporal dataset consisting of two Land sat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) images and one Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) image including 1986, 1994 and 2002 have been used to compare the land cover changes of the Daye area, Hubei Province, China. The combined bands method, iron oxide index and the NDVI index method have been used to investigate the spectrum character and the space character of the different ground objects. The knowledge-based decision tree classification method has been used to get the highly accurate classification result with the TM and ETM+ image data; the interactive interpret Method has been used to interpret the mine distributing with the SPOT-5 and TM fusion image; the visual interpretation method has been used to interpret mine distributing and environment changes with the QuickBird panchromatic and the multi-spectral fusion image. The characteristics of the high accurate classification result and high accurate change detection make quantitative analysis of different mining area features possible. The results of change detection show that the water quality of the whole water body was still bad, although the water quality have been improved in some areas. Vegetation shows degradation trend especially in those areas close to the mining areas, large areas of wood land and plantations are reduced, the increasing bare areas appeared based on the mine database, the reclamation percentage of the abandoned mining is only 20% from 1986 to 2002. The ecological environment in the study area may become worse unless the efficient management of mining business and effective eco-environment protection in mining area are carried out instantly.

Date Published: 9 June 2006
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 6200, Remote Sensing of the Environment: 15th National Symposium on Remote Sensing of China, 62000V (9 June 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.682167

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6200:
Remote Sensing of the Environment: 15th National Symposium on Remote Sensing of China
Qingxi Tong; Wei Gao; Huadong Guo, Editor(s)