Global Surface Mining and Land Reclamation of Time Series from 1985–2022

Abstract. Surface mining has profound impacts on ecosystems, contributing to land degradation, vegetation loss, pollution, and threats to biodiversity. Given the rapidly rising demand for raw materials, understanding the dynamics of mining and reclamation processes is essential to support sustainable development. Here, we integrate and analyze a large set of mines distributed worldwide based on their known land extent circa year 2020. We integrated time-series data of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), nighttime light (NTL) intensity, and land use to detect and identify changes within mine sites from 1985 to 2022 and assess spatiotemporal trajectories of mining and reclamation processes. The dataset comprises 74,726 polygons, covering a total area of 82,552 km². Our dataset obtained the maximum potential mining disturbance boundary – the cumulative outer envelope of mining-induced land disturbance over the study period. China leads in both the number and the areal extent of mining sites, followed by the United States and Australia. Within the analyzed set of polygons, mining land footprint expanded steadily between 1985 and 2022, with the annual disturbed area peaking at 1,943 km² in 2015, with a slowing expansion after 2015. From 1985 to 2022, the cumulative area of land converted to mine reached 40,596 km², accounting for 49 % of the total surface mining area in our set, while the reclaimed area was 29,285 km². Active mining areas dominated the global mining landscape, comprising 31.6 % of all polygons, with approximately 48.9 % concentrated in Asia. The spatiotemporal processes and patterns revealed in this study provide crucial insights into the development of mine sites and provide new data to support ecological impact assessments and sustainable development research in global mining regions.