Changes in Ecological Quality of Mining Areas and Their Response to Land Use: A Case Study of the Daye Mining Area

Clarifying the overarching logic of ecological quality changes in mining areas is crucial for guiding regional ecological conservation and promoting sustainable development. This study focuses on the Daye mining area in Hubei Province, employing the Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI), SEN+Mann-Kendall analysis, and the Hurst index to evaluate ecological quality changes from 2003 to 2023. Additionally, land-use data, including mining land, were extracted using the random forest algorithm to quantify the relationship between ecological quality changes and land-use transitions. The key findings include: (1) Over the past two decades, the ecological quality of the Daye mining area has shown a fluctuating upward trend, improving from a ″moderate″ level in 2003 to a ″relatively good″ level in 2023, with a spatial pattern characterized by higher quality in the south and lower quality in the north. (2) The ecological quality trend is overwhelmingly positive, with 96.658% of the area experiencing improvement. The overall trajectory is expected to remain favorable in the future. (3) Ecological quality has improved across all land-use types, with the greatest increase in forested areas and the smallest in mining land. Land-use transitions exhibit two distinct trends: improvement and degradation. Conversion of various land-use types into forested areas significantly contributed to ecological improvement, while transitions to built-up and mining land had more negative effects. This study provides a scientific basis for land resource management and ecological conservation in mining regions.