Mapping of Coal Fire in Jharia Coalfield, India: a Remote Sensing Based Approach
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SHORT NOTE
Mapping of Coal Fire in Jharia Coalfield, India: a Remote Sensing Based Approach Anjali Singh 1 & Ashwani Raju 2 & Pitambar Pati 3 & Narendra Kumar 1
Received: 28 October 2015 / Accepted: 25 April 2016 # Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2016
Abstract In India, Jharia Coalfield (JCF) has one of the densest congregations of surface-subsurface coal fires known worldwide. Systematic investigation and quantification of actual scenario of coal fires in JCF is always necessary to plan sustainable mining, industrial growth and environmental remediation on a long term basis. The present approach involves evaluation and mapping of coal fire using ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection) data. Mapping reveals that the area located around western, eastern and south-eastern parts of JCF covering territories of Shatabdi opencast, Barora; Sijua opencast; Godhar colliery; Kusunda; Bokapahari; Kujama and Lodna are under intense fire with cumulative coverage of 6.23 km2. The ASTER derived Land Surface Temperature (LST) of the anomalous areas have been subsequently validated by the field observations, carried out in JCF in February, 2010. The methodology adopted in the present study would provide precise evaluation and monitoring of coal fire in Jharia. Keywords ASTER . Surface-subsurface coal fires . Jharia . Mapping
* Ashwani Raju [email protected]
1
School for Environmental Sciences, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow 226025, India
2
Geological Survey of India, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh 482003, India
3
Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand 247667, India
Introduction Coal has a significant contribution towards India’s economic growth. It feeds major percentage of industrial demand for energy production. Due to the unavailability or inadequate supply of other energy sources, coal is primarily used as fuel in the industries. More than 90 % of the coal available in India is confined to the Gondwana Coalfields. Out of the total available resources of coal in Gondwana Coalfields, 88 % of the coal is of non-coking type (GSI 2004). Rest of the 12 % coal is coking type which is exclusively contributed by ‘Jharia Coalfield (JCF)’. Due to this reason, this coalfield has been exploited by intense mining activities for more than a hundred years. Intense mining exposed the coal seams to an open environment where high oxygen influx causes them to selfignite and undergo spontaneous combustion (Feng et al. 1973). JCF is rigorously affected by surface-subsurface coal fires (Michalski 2004). It has witnessed numerous severe accidents and uncountable loss of valuable coal reserves due to uncontrolled coal fires. Coal fire affected areas are often inaccessible. Field surveys may not be plan frequently and considered unfeasible from economic point of view. Therefore, satellite remote sensing has widely contributed in analysing thermal phenomenon like coal fires (Rosema et al. 1999; Quattrochi et al. 2009; Prakash and Gens 2010). Since two decade
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