Research status and countermeasures of coordinated development of coal mining and cultivated land protection in the plain coal-cropland overlapped areas

Cultivated land is the foundation of food security, while coal guarantees the security of the energy. The coal-cropland overlapped area accounts for approximate 42.7% of the total cultivated land area in China, making it become a prominent contradiction between the extensive mining and cultivated land protection. How to realize the coordinated development of the coal mining and the cultivated land protection is an urgent problem in coal-cropland overlapped areas. This paper analyzes the research status and existing issues of the coordinated development between mining and cultivated land protection from the following three aspects: the damage mechanism of subsidence land in plain coal-cropland overlapped areas, the damage degree evaluation of subsidence land induced by mining, the control technology for the mining subsidence. Then, considering the characteristics of the cultivated land, such as the extensive protection-needed area and the high deformation tolerance, a new technical approach of controlling regional rock strata and surface deformation in green mining is proposed by combining source control and restoration. The corresponding prediction and control design methods of surface deformation are established. Additionally, the key research directions for the coordination of coal mining and cultivated land protection in the plain coal-cropland overlapped areas are pointed out, including the driving mechanism of cultivated land damage induced by mining in the plain area, protection thresholds for the quality of the cultivated land in subsidence areas, theories and methods of the subsidence coordinated control of the green mining facing the cultivated land protection. The main objective of this paper is to promote the coordinated development of the green mining and the cultivated land protection in the plain coal-cropland overlapped areas.