Integration of D-InSAR and GIS technology for identifying illegal underground mining in Yangquan District, Shanxi Province, China

The illegal mining events could be found in coal-rich regions around the world, which could not only seriously damage mineral resources and ecological environment, but also cause mine disasters and great economic loss, as well as threatening safety production and social stability. Due to wide distribution of mines and strong concealment of underground illegal mining activities, it is hard to find out these behaviors promptly and accurately depending only on mine law-enforcing departments whose investigations will be time–energy–finance-consuming. Therefore, it is an urgent problem to quickly and accurately identify illegal mining events. To solve the problem, this paper uses the new mining subsidence monitoring by D-InSAR to accurately get the surface deformation and establishes a space–time relationship model of surface deformation and underground mining characterized by subsidence. On the basis of this, the integration of D-InSAR and GIS technology is used to develop a quick, efficient, and accurate way to identify illegal underground mining areas. Then, a case study is conducted in the district of Yangquan, Shanxi Province, China. The identification results have been compared with the data about illegal mining by local law-enforcing departments during the same period. The research results indicate that the identification results are basically the same as the actual illegal mining events. Therefore, the proposed method based on integration of D-InSAR and GIS technology could be utilized for real-time and dynamic monitoring of illegal mining events. The results could also provide important technical support in guiding mine law-enforcing departments to timely crack down and remove illegal underground mining events, maintain mining orders, and protect the ecological environment.