Southern Appalachian forests are recognized as a biodiversity hot spot of global significance, particularly for endemic aquatic salamanders and mussels. The dominant driver of land-cover and land-use change in this region is surface mining, with an ever-increasing proportion occurring as mountaintop mining with valley fill operations (MTVF). In MTVF, seams of coal are exposed using explosives, ...

[1] Surface mining of coal and subsequent reclamation represent the dominant land use change in the central Appalachian Plateau (CAP) region of the United States. Hydrologic impacts of surface mining have been studied at the plot scale, but effects at broader scales have not been explored adequately. Broad-scale classification of reclaimed sites is difficult because standing vegetation makes th...

Subsidence basins filled with water are being formed above exploitation fields also in woodland areas leading to changes in water relations simultaneously affecting creation of environmental islands characterized by higher biodiversity in comparison with adjacent areas. Unfortunately, these types of water reservoirs from the legal point of view are considered mining damage and should thus be re...

The Deckers Creek watershed in northern West Virginia (USA), containing a land area of 166 km2 (63 mi2), has a long history of industrial development and attendant environmental abuses from both land and water pollution practices. The water in Deckers Creek was sampled in 1974 at 29 locations along the main stem and resampled in 1999-2000 to determine water quality changes over this 25-year per...

Reclamation suitability evaluation is the basis for determining reuse direction of damaged land. Limit condition method most widely used in land reclamation at present. In this paper, limit to evaluate Pingdingshan Tianan ten coal mine. The index area determined as six main factors: field slope/land flatness, ponding, depth collapse, soil texture, thickness layer, irrigation and drainage condit...