Best Practices for Mission Applications

Mapping Abandoned Mine Land Features in Virginia

—Dianne Osborne, DOI - Office of Surface Mining

The State of Virginia (VA) Department of Mines Minerals and Energy (DMME), and the Office of Surface Mining, Technology Innovation and Professional Services are using the ESRI suite of tools to assist in the inventory of abandoned mine lands (AML) in southwestern VA.

High resolution satellite imagery, including QuickBird-2 and GeoEye-1 are being used to conduct feature extraction of AML sites. The ArcGIS extension ENVI EX, is being used to successfully map such AML features as dangerous high-walls, gob piles, clogged streams, clogged stream lands and acid mine drainage.

This work is important to DMME because the results of the AML feature extraction can be directly tied to business performance measures. VA DMME can use the updated ArcGIS AML database to report accurate measures of performance, and thereby receive additional funding to remediate AML sites.