The Challenge to Improve the Prediction of Subsidence Impacts

ABSTRACT: Over the last twenty-five years, due largely to direct monitoring and industry funded research the understanding of mining induced subsidence has been greatly enhanced. A high level of correlation between predicted subsidence and actual ground movement has been achieved, especially where the terrain is fairly uniform. The more critical component is determining the nature of impacts specific levels of subsidence will have on surface features, both natural (cliffs, gorges and rivers) and man made structures (roads, pipelines, houses and commercial buildings). With proposed changes to the approval mechanism for longwall mining operations there will be a greater need to improve the accuracy of subsidence predictions and estimating the resulting impacts upon all surface features. This will require further fine-tuning of the mechanisms used to measure and predict subsidence.