7.4.7 Factors controlling
the LUP change in CMAs
On an attempt to identify the controlling factor(s) it was noted that change
in LUP in mining areas is caused not only due to mining; its snow-balling effect
continues upto much larger area and once the "cycle of land degradation" starts,
it goes on working in accelerated speed unless forcefully stopped. When land-reclamation
or greening activity is conducted in mining areas, the lands taken care of are
generally only those lands which are directly or visibly disturbed by mining
e.g. quarry or fire-areas; while the remaining areas develop their own land-use
by nature's care only. This variety of land (uncared by men) is many times more
in areal extent than the cared (by men) variety. Thus when the mining areas
are considered in total to study LUP, the actual situations are impacted mainly
by the LUP generated by nature's care and disturbed by human activities, e.g.
mining, construction etc. which in turn again are controlled to some extent
by natural conditions. The final LUP generated in mining areas is an expression
of interaction of all the natural and human induced factors, including human
efforts for greening the lands. The idea bears some parallelism with the concept
that in many cases natural factors provide limitations and potentials of land
for particular use (Spangle et al. 1976). Further, the basic control for impact
of coal-mining on land-use pattern lies with availability of mineable coal seam(s)
which is again a geologic and natural factor. This "nature" includes climatic,
physiographic (including drainage), geologic and soil conditions (nature, thickness
etc), and even demographic conditions (population density, income status etc.)
all of which effect the mining activity. Naturally mining criteria like excavation
details (depth, thickness, etc.), life of mine, area of mining, etc all are
effected by natural and geologic factors and in turn have some control on impact
of mining on land-use of the area. Thus the final LUP developed (i.e. the post
mining LUP) is an expression of interaction between all these natural, demographic/social
and human induced factors. The quality and quantity of effort to develop a certain
LUP made by the population around an area is dependent upon mainly human interference
on the land which in turn is dependent upon the density, and education of the
population. Hence the income status of the same population, also controls the
final LUP. Again the degree of damage to LUP is decided by the mining details
and hence poses limitations or potentials of that particular land to develop
certain land-use. Further its soil (quality and thickness), topography, water
availability etc. will control the development. This concept is corroborated
by the concept of Karunakaran (1982) who mentioned that the manner in which
the environment is modified, degraded or conserved depends largely on the type
of interaction between the different natural parameters and on the type and
degree of human interference. These natural parameters are, in all probability
mainly geologic and geomorphologic. Further it was mentioned that in order to
mitigate environmental degradations caused by mining operations, it is necessary
that environmental geological and geomorphological considerations are given
due importance. To some extent some parallel idea have been evolved by some
recent study in Jharia coalfield (Mukherjee 1999 & Raju 1999).
Thus it appeared that, the impacts of coal-mining on LUP is controlled by some
geologic, human and natural factors. Any plan to minimise such impacts will
not be successful unless the quality and quantity of control of such factors
are properly understood and taken care of. Further data treatment and analysis
was done giving due importance to this fact considering henceforth geologic
factors also as natural factors.
Considering previous literature in this subject (Spangale et al., 1976, Karunakaran,
1982) and standard knowledge of environmental geology, a list of 13 possible
factors (natural, human, social) was prepared which could have some control
on change in LUP in CMAs.
The possible controlling factors identified are represented henceforth by the
respective abbreviations as listed below, grouped as per the nature of control
they provide.
A. Factors having direct control:
1. Surface water availability; SW
2. Topographic set-up; T
3. Rainfall; R
4. Soil cover; SC
5. Rock Type ; RT
B. Factors having indirect control:
6. Excavation Depth; ED
7. Excavation thickness; ET
8. Project Area; PA
9. Life of Mine; LM C. Factors with more indirect control:
10. Fault; FT
11. Strata dip; SD
12. Income per head/day ; I
13. Population density; PD
7.4.8 Magnitude of control of the factors
On thorough anlysis of the data on LUP change in CMAs and the possible factor(s)
controlling such change in all the thirtyone (31) sample cases it was realised
that the quality and quantity of LUP change varies with the conditions of these
possible factors.
Thus the total range of conditions (present in field) of each such factor was
classified into five (5) class intervals, A to E so that class A refers to most
suitable, and gradually through other classes class E refers to the toughest
conditions for sustainable greening. The samples falling in each class interval
were classified. Next detailed analysis was conducted with samples falling in
class A, class C and class E to know the change in LUP of CMAs under most, moderate
and worst eco-friendly conditions.
From the data set those cases falling in classes A, C and E were selected and
analysed to get the respective equations for each of the thirteen (13) controlling
factors identified, for A, C and E cases. Thus three sets of 13 equations were
obtained for moderate (Rani & Ghosh, 1999), best and worst ecofriendly conditions.
From these three sets, three analytical hierarchies were established about the
capacity of these factors to allow LUP change in CMAs under most, moderate and
worst ecofriendly set of conditions, which were marked as H1, H2 and H3 respectively.
From each of these hierarchies the top five (5) were considered as powerful
controlling factors interfering in LUP change in CMAs and the five respective
equations (from each of the three sets of 13 equations) were selected for further
analysis.
Next the method of Gausian elimination, (which is a standard direct method to
solve the linear systems), was applied to get the capacity of the five powerful
natural/social factors to influence the change of the respective LUP components
by unit area mining under most, moderate and worst eco-friendly conditions.
The equations obtained are listed next as C1, C2 and C3 respectively.
-1.535 (F) - 0.158 (C) + 0.421 (W) - 0.475 (B) - 0.172 (O) = 1 …………… C1
-3.821 (F) - 2.318 (C) - 7.713 (W) - 5.236 (B) - 2.288 (O) = 1 ……………. C2
-2.781 (F) - 0.073 (C) + 0.406 (W) + 0.598 (B) - 0.291 (O) = 1 …………… C3
(Ghosh & Rani, 2001).
In right hand side of each equation "1" stands for unit area mining.
These three equations indicate the amount of land-uses disturbed by mining related
activities (and mining) but escape the attention while LUMP are prepared for
CMAs, in all probability because the damages are not the direct effects of mining.
7.4.9 Recommendations
From the study it has been recommended that when any coal mining is to be conducted
the amount of area to be mined should be noted from the mine plan. The geological
and social conditions in the area should be examined to know the level of eco-friendlyness
of the region. Next the respective equation suitable for the region should be
consulted to know the amount of forest area and cultivation land to be lost
due to that mining even after applying usual plantation activities which are
conducted generally to green the mining degraded lands. Hence the LUPg should
take care that an equivalent amount of land in addition to the land directly
degraded by mining should be attempted to green (in terms of plantation and
or agriculture) so that in the long run the region will face no further decrease
of green cover.
Such studies can be conducted for all varieties of MAs to generate some guidelines
for LUPg for MAs.