Work

Spatiotemporal Evolution and Driving Factors of Surface Temperature Changes Before and After Ecological Restoration of Mines in the Plateau Alpine Permafrost Regions Based on Landsat Images

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Land surface temperature (LST) is a key indicator reflecting the ecological environmental disturbance caused by open-pit coal mining activities and determining the ecological status in alpine permafrost regions. Thus, it is crucial to study the spatiotemporal variations and influencing mechanisms of LST throughout all stages of small-scale mining–large-scale land surface damage–ecological restoration. Landsat imagery over nine periods was extracted from the growing seasons between 1990 and 2024. This study retrieved LST while simultaneously calculating albedo, soil moisture, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for each time phase. By integrating land use/cover (LUCC) data, the spatiotemporal evolution patterns of LST in the mining area throughout all stages were revealed. Based on the Geodetector method, an identification approach for factors influencing LST spatial differentiation was established. This approach was applicable to the entire process characterized by significant land type transitions. The results indicate that the spatiotemporal variations in LST were significantly correlated with land surface damage and restoration caused by human activities in the mining area. With the implementation of ecological restoration, high and ultra-high temperatures decreased by about 25.98% compared to the period when the surface damage was the most severe. The main influencing factors of LST differentiation were identified for different land use types, i.e., natural and restored meadows (soil wetness, albedo, and NDVI), mine pits (albedo, aspect, and elevation), and mining waste dumps (aspect and albedo before restoration; aspect and NDVI after restoration). This study can provide a reference for monitoring the ecological environment changes and ecological restoration of global coalfields with the same climatic characteristics.

Source: Earth

DOI: 10.3390/earth6040141