Multitemporal analysis of satellite data and their use in the monitoring of the environmental impacts of open cast lignite mining areas in Eastern Germany

This paper reports an investigation into the use and application of remote sensing data for monitoring the environmental impacts of open cast lignite mining in Eastern Germany. The use of remote sensing for environmental monitoring and the reclamation of such devastated areas has been demonstrated on three open cast lignite mining areas, only one of which is still active. This investigation is based on the digital analysis of several Landsat-TM and ERS-1 data sets acquired from 1989 to 1994. The characteristics of the imagery enable quantitative analysis of different open cast mine features, such as waste, water bodies, change of land use, reclamation processes and estimation of vegetation cover in the affected areas. On the basis of the Maximum Likelihood Classification of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data the open cast mining areas were separated into bare open cast areas and areas of less and dense vegetation. The bare open cast areas were classified with respect to type of different sediments and the ...