Spatial Information System for Risk Assessment of Dust Transport in the Neighbourhood of the Surface Coal Mine

Risk assessment of dust transport from surface coal mines over neighbouring residential zones requires more complex modelling tools in order to analyse satellite images, to attach high resolution aerial images, to create more precise digital terrain models, to integrate time series of meteorological variables, to realize linkage between the spatial database and numerical simulation tools, to provide spatial analysis, and to visualize the results. Thus, a spatial information system based on GIS technology is used for data management, advanced spatial analysis and numerical simulation linked by shared data files. At first, a digital terrain model is created by processing data originating from surface laser scanning, GPS measurements and geodetic surveys. This enables precise modelling of wind flows over potential dust emission sources for an estimation of dust transport. Finally, the simulation outputs are transformed into a set of existing digital map layers, and spatial analysis is carried out for visualization.