Study on the Development Law of Mining-Induced Ground Cracks under Gully Terrain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript investigated the development of ground crack as a response to coal seam mining via field and UAV survey and numerical simulation. A structure model was established to analyze the formation mechanism and influencing factors of ground cracks, which could provide some reference value for mining-induced ground cracks and their subsequent disasters. Some modification should be made on this article.

1.      The originality of this article needs to be strengthened in Introduction. Firstly, the research review in the paragraphs in Lines 48-88 lacks proper organization. It enumerated a number of previous studies on development of ground cracks, however very few in-depth reviews, like comments on state-of-art, were made. The article should not just present the literatures one by one, but also need to generally integrate them into some review on them, from which the authors could lead to their own idea and job. By the way, the length of these paragraphs was suggested to be reduced somehow, to emphasize the key points.

2.      As far as I remember, there is a word limit for Remote Sensing (no more than 200 words)? Please check that.

3.      Line 91: “However”

“However”, as a transition in this sentence, seems odd on logic from the last sentence.

4.      Lines 94-95: “The dynamic evolution law cannot be studied well by previous methods.”:

This expression is somehow vague. If the article wants to say something like this, it would better explain more clearly on the specific insufficiency in previous methods, for example: what previous methods have what advantages that might cause what aspect of the “well study”. These should be reorganized.

5.      Lines 101 and 105: “For the first time”

The authors need to be careful to use such expressions.

6.      The study area lacks information of geographical location. A location map or longitude and latitude information need to be added.

7.      Figure 1: The north arrow and scale bar need to be involved in the figure. What are the red lines? Contours? A legend or labels should be added.

8.      Table 1: Is this table necessary to illustrate in the article? These parameters seem not special to contribute much to this article. I think the key information can be included in text. Please consider this.

9.      Line 206: “permanent boundary cracks and dynamic in-plane cracks”

“Permanent” is not so appropriate to depict the features. Please consider this.

10.   Figure 7: A scale bar is better than the size label of the map length and width. The longitude and latitude information can be added in this figure.

11.   Figure 8: It is a little bit simple for the only 16 cracks. Besides the width, the crack types (boundary or in-plane) can be also involved in the statistic.

12.   Figure 10: Like Figure 5, the axes of depth and horizontal distance should be added in the figure.

13.   Figures 10 and 11: The sub-figure of Figures 10 and 11 should be numbered as (a), (b), (c)…, and the captions of each sub-figures should be added. It is not easy now to understand the description in text in combination with figure.

By the way, the Figures 10 and 11 seems quite similar. The readers cannot understand the differences between them when they directly see the two figures. Add some labels in the figures, or make precise descriptions in captions.

14.   Lines 240, 270, etc: advance

Please consider making a schematic to show what the “advance” is.

15.   Figure 17: What is the black-white bar at bottom?

16.   Some portions in Discussion seem redundant or reduplicated in comparison with Results (i.e., Lines 443-449). Be aware of that discussion section should extract some insights from the results, and meanwhile compared the results to some other references, to summarize your own insights into the scientific pattern.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors of the paper touched upon an important problem not only from a purely scientific, but also from an application point of view, the problem of crack formation in the area of ​​ravines in the area of ​​intensive underground mining of hard coal. The paper is very interesting and provides some new information on the issues raised. I think it is well designed and written, the drawings are generally of good quality, and the reasoning is logical, conclusions follow from the results and discussion. However, the authors did not avoid a few errors that should be eliminated before the possible acceptance of the text for printing, for example:

- The authors should indicate the extent of land subsidence in the study area. Are these subsidences of a few millimeters, several meters, or perhaps much larger, reaching up to several dozen meters?

- The authors did not carry out an extensive review of the literature also concerning land subsidence. The number of works is only 30 items (which is not an impressive number), works from other parts of the world have been omitted - 99% of the cited works are works by Chinese authors and concerning the areas of coal mining in China (and not only in China this type of industrial activity has been and is carried out ). I believe that it is necessary to supplement the literature and make a broad review of it, the important works on this issue include, among others, the following items:

 

Marschalko, M. et al. An indicative method for determination of the most hazardous changes in slopes of the subsidence basins in an underground coal mining area in Ostrava (Czech Republic). Environ. prompt. Assess. 185, 509–522 (2013).

 

Lee, D. K., Mojtabai, N., Lee, H. B. & Song, W. K. Assessment of the influencing factors on subsidence at abandoned coal mines in South Korea. Environ. Earth Science. 68, 647–654 (2013).

 

Akcin, H., Kutoglu, H. S., Kemaldere, H., Deguchi, T. & Koksal, E. Monitoring subsidence effects in the urban area of ​​Zonguldak Hardcoal Basin of Turkey by InSAR-GIS integration. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. sci. 10(9), 1807–1814. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-10-1807-2010 (2010).

 

Solarski, M., Machowski, R., Rzetala, M. et al. Hypsometric changes in urban areas resulting from multiple years of mining activity. Sci Rep. 12, 2982 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06847-8

 

Wang, J., Wang, P., Qin, Q. & Wang, H. The effects of land subsidence and rehabilitation on soil hydraulic properties in a mining area in the Loess Plateau of China. CATENA 159, 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2017.08.001 (2017).

 

Harnischmacher, S. & Zepp, H. Mining and its impact on the earth surface in the Ruhr District (Germany). Zeitschrift fur Geomorphologie 58(suppl. 3), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1127/0372-8854/2013/S-00131 (2014).

 

Henselowsky, F., Rölkens, J., Kelterbaum, D. & Bubenzer, O. Anthropogenic relief changes in a long-lasting lignite mining area (‘Ville’, Germany) derived from historic maps and digital elevation models. Earth Surf. Proc. Land. 46(9), 1725–1738. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.5103 (2021).

 

Dulias, R. The Impact of Mining on the Landscape, A Study of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin in Poland. Environmental Science and Engineering. 209, (Springer International Publishing Switzerland, 2016).

 

Nadudvari, Adam. "Using radar interferometry and SBAS technique to detect surface subsidence relating to coal mining in Upper Silesia from 1993-2000 and 2003-2010" Environmental & Socio-economic Studies, vol.4, no.1, 2016, pp.24-34. https://doi.org/10.1515/environ-2016-0003

 

Solarski, M. Anthropogenic transformations of the Bytom area relief in the period of 1883–1994. Environ. Socio-econ. Stud. 1(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1515/environ-2015-0001 (2013).

In addition, a keyword regarding the geolocation of the study area and a location figure should be added, taking into account the location of the research area on the continent and in the country

It is also necessary to correct figure 3.2. because this is not the correct form of making a pie chart. The graph should be flat and start "at 12 o'clock".

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I think the authors have done a good job and the article is ready for acceptation.

Reviewer 2 Report

Most of my comments and suggestions have been responded to by the authors, so I believe that the article may be considered for publication in its current form.