Height of overlying strata failure zone under different hydrogeological units

The water flowing fractured zone height (WFFZH) is critical for the safe exploitation of coal resources and environmental protection, especially in arid and semiarid mining areas. Most existing studies focus on the WFFZH in bedrock, without considering the effect of the soil layer. This paper uses in situ data from a Jurassic coalfield the Yu-Shen-Fu mining area in Shaanxi province, China, to investigate the WFFZH for different hydrogeological units. Thirteen hydrogeological units, which were simplified into 4 hydrogeological associations, were used in this study to develop the inhibition coefficient and promotion coefficient of the soil layer and to determine the quantitative relationship between the soil-bedrock ratio and the inhibition (promotion) coefficient. This information was used to develop a comprehensive prediction method for WFFZH under complex hydrogeological structures using ArcGIS. The traditional calculation method for WFFZH only considers the soil layer’s inhibition effect whereas our comprehensive prediction method considers multiple factors. The verification of field investigation indicates that the comprehensive prediction method is more accurate than the traditional WFFZH calculation method.