Mapping the yearly extent of surface coal mining in Central Appalachia using Landsat and Google Earth Engine — Cumulative Mining Area (shapefile)

These data accompany the 2018 manuscript published in <i>PLOS One</i> 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. <br> <br> This specific dataset is an Esri shapefile of the cumulative mining area as determined by this study from the period 1985 through 2015. This dataset is the overall mining “footprint” in Appalachia, indicating any location where mining has occurred during this period. This dataset does not indicate, however, which year(s) mining was occurring in any given location.

本数据集与2018年发表于《PLOS One》期刊、题为《利用陆地卫星（Landsat）与谷歌地球引擎（Google Earth Engine）绘制阿巴拉契亚中部地表煤矿开采年度范围》的学术论文配套。在该研究中，研究者依托谷歌地球引擎（Google Earth Engine）平台与公开可获取的陆地卫星（Landsat）影像，构建了1985年至2015年美国阿巴拉契亚地区地表煤矿开采的年度数据集。<br><br>本特定数据集为经本次研究确定的1985年至2015年累计矿区范围的Esri形状文件（Esri shapefile），其表征了该时段内阿巴拉契亚地区所有存在采矿活动的区域的整体开采"足迹"，不过该数据集并未指明任意特定位置的采矿发生年份。