MINE RECLAMATION OF BARITE MINES IN THE WASHINGTON COUNTY MINE DISTRICT, 1986-2008 LANDSAT TIME-SERIES

From the 1870s to the late 20^th century, barite has been mined in Missouri, becoming one of the largest producers of barite in the world. State and federal legislation has required mining companies to implement land reclamation projects to rejuvenate and recover the land to its natural vegetative state once mining operations have ceased. In 1986, the Washington County Mine District accounted for approximately 44 km² of distributed mine lands. This study aims to calculate the change in land cover over a 23 year time period using several change detection models. Landsat images from 1986 to 2008 have been classified to monitor the land reclamation process in the Washington County Mine District, in Southeast Missouri. Land cover areas were classified into five categories: urban, water, forest land, agricultural land and mining areas. Several change detection models such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were used to display the change in land cover over the time period. Time series was used to show the gradual land cover change and recovery of the vegetation in the study region. Preliminary results show a major decrease in distributed mine land with an increase in both reforested land and restored agriculture.