Spatial Analysis of Mountaintop Mining's Impact on Water Quality

Mountaintop coal mining (MTM) has been shown to have negative effects on both biological communities and water quality downstream of mining. Impacts of MTM can still be seen decades after the mining has ended, leading to the conclusion that the cumulative effects of mining last decades after the mining has ended. Here, I aim to analyze the effects of MTM on both water quality and benthic macroinvertebrates in streams of the Southern Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky. I combine a remotely sensed mining landcover product with data on water quality parameters and stream macroinvertebrate communities from state and federal monitoring programs to examine how mining at different spatial scales impact stream water quality and biotic communities. Using geospatial statistical analysis in ArcGIS and the R statistical environment, the percent of mining on both a catchment level and larger watershed level is calculated and used to examine the effects of MTM on the sample sites. The analysis is centered around the year 2015, providing relevant and up to date analysis with the current coal mining in Kentucky. Through this project, a better understanding of the accumulative and local effects of MTM on both water quality and the benthic macroinvertebrates of nearby streams can be obtained.