Change detection analysis in coverage area of coal fire from 2009 to 2019 in Jharia Coalfield using remote sensing data

ABSTRACT

Many coal-producing nations across the world face significant risks due to subsurface and surface coal fires. Thus, monitoring of coal fire propagation is the need to minimize the risk and extreme loss of energy resources. The present study aims to analyse the changes that occurred in coal fire area coverage from 2009 to 2019 in Jharia coalfield (JCF) using Land remote sensing satellite (Landsat) data. The land surface temperature (LST) was estimated separately for 2 years (2019 and 2009) using Landsat data of three bands (thermal infrared (TIR), near-infrared (NIR), and red band). The threshold LST (${\gamma }_{\mathrm{L}\mathrm{S}\mathrm{T}})$ values were estimated for both the years for detection and delineation of fire-affected pixels. ${\gamma }_{\mathrm{L}\mathrm{S}\mathrm{T}}$were determined using the statistical method and observed to be 38.04°C and 42.97°C, respectively, for the year 2019 and 2009. The study results also indicated that satellite-based LST for 2019 was saturated at nearly 49.89°C. Thus, the LST for high-temperature zones or surface fire zones cannot be determined using the specified band data. The LST estimated using Landsat data for 2019 was validated with field temperature measurement at 22 different locations using a thermal camera. The locations of each station were tracked using a global positioning system (GPS) device. It was found that the predicted LSTs from satellite data are highly correlated with the field data with a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.95.

Acknowledgements

The work has been carried out at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela, Odisha, India. The authors are thankful to Director NIT Rourkela for providing the computing facility for executing the work. Authors are acknowledged to BCCL, Dhanbad for facilitating the necessary data and permission for carrying out the study. Authors are also thankful to U.S.G.S for providing the satellite data to conduct the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.