Spatiotemporal subsidence over Pabdana coal mine Kerman Province, central Iran using time-series of Sentinel-1 remote sensing imagery

Environmental monitoring of mining regions using sat-ellite imagery is crucial for sustainable exploitation and preventing geohazards. Movements due to the failure of the roof in underground coal mining, by migrating upwards and outwards from the seam being mined, could eventu-ally appear as ground deformation. To investigate the mat-ter further, the surface deformation that occurred over the Pabdana mining area was monitored in three time periods, between October 2, 2014, and July 27, 2019. Persistent scat-terer interferometry (PSI) was used based on 150 ascending and descending Sentinel-1A images. The maximum min-ing subsidence rate during the studied periods was about 30 to 35 mm/yr. The PSI analysis shows that the subsid-ence rate varied both temporally and spatially during the three studied periods. The time series and the displacement rate for various cross-sections highlight a clear quantitative relationship between coal extraction progress and sub-sidence, which proceeded southward throughout the three study periods. So, considering coal mining subsidence as a geohazard, land developments and structures over the mining area may be safeguarded. The approach used in this investigation can be implemented in other similar coal mining zones.