The Influence of Human Activities and Climate Change on the Spatiotemporal Variations of Eco-Environmental Quality in Shendong Mining Area, China from 1990 to 2023

The Shendong mining area is the largest coal production base in western China. Due to long-term mining activities, the ecological environment quality (EEQ) of the Shendong mining area has undergone significant changes. Investigating the evolution of EEQ during the process of mineral resource exploitation is of great importance for the sustainable development of the mining area. However, current research lacks a quantitative assessment of the contributions of climate change and human activities to the spatiotemporal variations in EEQ in the Shendong mining area. In this study, the Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI) was used as an EEQ evaluation metric. The Theil–Sen slope estimation and Mann–Kendall test were applied to analyze the spatiotemporal changes of EEQ from 1990 to 2023. Additionally, the partial derivative method was used to investigate the response characteristics of EEQ to climatic factors and human activities and to quantify the relative contributions of these two driving factors. The results indicate that, over the past 34 years, the overall EEQ in the study area has shown an improving trend. Compared to 1990, the proportions of areas with good-grade and excellent-grade EEQ in 2023 increased by 28% and 23.78%, respectively. Additionally, in the second phase (2011–2023), the average RSEI time series value significantly increased compared to the first phase (1990–2010). Among the climatic factors, annual precipitation had the greatest impact on EEQ, with an average contribution rate of 0.085. The conversion of unused land to forestland significantly improved the EEQ, with the area showing a very significant increase in RSEI, accounting for 82.30%. The areas in the mining region showing very significant, significant, and slight increases in RSEI were smaller than the overall study area. In conclusion, the overall EEQ in the study area has shown an improving trend, with climate change being the dominant factor in 71.52% of the areas where RSEI increased, while human activities were the dominant factor in 26.89% of the areas where RSEI decreased.