Land use patterns and their proximity to abandoned mine lands in the State of Pennsylvania

Coal mining began in Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s and over the next two centuries, little thought was given to how extracting several billion tons of coal from the Earth's surface would impact the environment. Today's landscape is now scarred with environmental and safety hazards from past mining activities as coal operators failed to return land to its pre-mining conditions. The state has initiated clean-up efforts but has only eliminated a small portion of their some 30,000 abandoned mine land (AML) problems. Using GIS, this study presents the results of analyzing the distribution of AMLs and their relation to land use in Pennsylvania. Calculating the type and amount of land use in close proximity to AMLs demonstrates the environmental and safety hazards posed by these areas.