Analysis of vegetation restoration effect and attribution of Pingzhuang West Open-Pit Mine based on Landsat remote sensing images

LI Jun; WANG Hui; ZHANG Chengye; PENG Chuanying; HU Jingyu; LAN Guangsheng; ZHANG Yaping

Abstract：Monitoring the vegetation restoration effect on coal mine dumps in fragile ecosystems and pinpointing the drivers of vegetation changes is able to provide crucial technical and data support for the sustainable progress of restoration initiatives.Existing studies using long time-series remote sensing data for vegetation changes in mining areas and their driving mechanisms lack a fine portrayal of the vegetation recovery of the whole life cycle of the dis-charge sites at the mine scale,and lack thematic indicators to quantitatively characterize the vegetation resilience in the dumping site.In order to address the above problems,In this paper,we examined three external dumps at the Pingzhuang West Open Pit Mine,using Landsat images to calculate annual maximum INDV(Normalized Difference Vegetation Index)in this area.We conducted a temporal trend analysis for in-depth monitoring of vegetation changes at these sites over the full cycle.Additionally,we introduced the concept of vegetation restoration force to evaluate the effectiveness of restoration efforts at a regional scale.Finally,the multiple regression residual method is employed to quantitatively assess the effects of two primary driving factors,climate change and human activities,on vegeta-tion changes at waste disposal sites.Experimental findings reveal:① During 2008-2023,the vegetation indices in the three dumping sites showed an increasing trend,with most areas being restored to the level before open-pit mining;② The vegetation recovery force in the dumps exhibits a pattern characterized by an initial increase,fol-lowed by a decrease,and culminating in stabilization.The strongest recovery force is observed in Shanhou dumping site,succeeded by Sanjia dumping site,while Taipingdi dumping site display the weakest recovery force;③The veg-etation improvement areas primarily showcase the predominant influence of human activities and the synergistic impact of human activities and climate change.In areas of vegetation degradation,all three driving modes are present,with Sanjia dumping site notably experiencing a greater combined influence of human activity and climate change.