Mapping the yearly extent of surface coal mining in Central Appalachia using Landsat and Google Earth Engine — Mine Permit Boundaries (GeoTIFF)

These data accompany the 2018 manuscript published in PLOS One titled "Mapping the yearly extent of surface coal mining in Central Appalachia using Landsat and Google Earth Engine". In this manuscript, researchers used the Google Earth Engine platform and freely-accessible Landsat imagery to create a yearly dataset (1985 through 2015) of surface coal mining in the Appalachian region of the United States of America. This dataset is a GeoTIFF file of known mine permit boundaries (as issued by various state governments) clipped to the study area. Public mine permit data comes from various state agencies in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.