Remote Sensing Monitoring and Evaluation of Vegetation Restoration in Grassland Mining Areas—A Case Study of the Shengli Mining Area in Xilinhot City, China

Abstract

Coal production will cause serious damage to regional vegetation, especially in ecologically fragile grasslands. It is the consensus of all major countries to conduct vegetation restoration and management monitoring in areas damaged by coal production. This paper compares the adaptability of different data sources and different vegetation indices to grassland mining areas and proposes a normalized environmental vegetation index (NEVI) suitable for vegetation monitoring in grassland mining areas. Based on the Landsat and Sentinel data from 2005 to 2019, this paper uses NEVI to monitor the vegetation destruction and restoration of the Shengli mining area. The main result is that the vegetation restoration work in the Shengli mining area started in 2007 and was gradually carried out in subsequent years. The restoration effect of vegetation is significantly better in the east than in the west. The NEVI of the vegetation in the east can reach, or exceed, the level of natural vegetation in the same period. The restoration of vegetation degradation in some areas requires strengthening of management and maintenance measures.