Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Modeling forest ecosystem changes resulting from surface coal mining in West Virginia

Informally Refereed

Abstract

The objective of this project is to assess the effects of surface coal mining on forest ecosystem disturbance and restoration in the Coal River Subbasin in southern West Virginia. Our approach is to develop disturbance impact models for this subbasin that will serve as a case study for testing the feasibility of integrating currently available GIS data layers, remote sensing, and existing Forest Inventory and Analaysis program (FIA) data. Using a set of 30-m-pixel based GIS-based predictor layers (topography, soils and imagery), we developed models that predict total forest carbon for each pixel in the study area. By combining the vegetation change tracker (VCT) year of disturbance outputs with an annual biomass map derived from modeling the FIA data, we will be able to determine biomass losses from mining and estimate potential forest regrowth.

Parent Publication

Citation

Brown, John; Lister, Andrew J.; Fajvan, Mary Ann; Ruefenacht, Bonnie; Mazzarella, Christine. 2012. Modeling forest ecosystem changes resulting from surface coal mining in West Virginia. In: McWilliams, Will; Roesch, Francis A. eds. 2012. Monitoring Across Borders: 2010 Joint Meeting of the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Symposium and the Southern Mensurationists. e-Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-157. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 67-75.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/40975