GEE-Cross-border-Analysis-of-Rare-Earth-Elements-Mining-Extents-

Monitoring-Mining-Extents

Abstract: Recently the demand for rare earth elements for green energy production has increased. This demand has led to increased rare earth exploitation. Particularly, China and Myanmar bor-der areas have attracted significant rare earth mining due to their border geopolitics. We con-ducted an empirical study in the rare earth mining fields of China-Myanmar geopolitical border within Kachin State in northern Myanmar and Nujiang Prefecture area in China, aiming at char-acterizing changes in REE mining surface footprints for the past 20 years (2000 – 2020) and its imperial impact on land using Google Earth Engine (GEE). We extracted surface reflectance imag-es for 2005 and 2010 from Landsat 5 TM and 2015 and 2020 images from Landsat 8 OLI. Nor-malized Vegetation Index (NDVI) was applied on dense time-series imagery to enhance landcover categories. Random Forest was used to categorize landcover into mine and none-mine classes with accuracy of 98% and Kappa coefficient of 0.98. The results show increase in REE mining from 2005 to 2020. Change detection analysis showed increased REE surface mining extent by 3.2 km2. We also found continuous decrease in none-mine cover, including vegetation. Quantification of such changes over time is necessary for decision-makers to understand environmental dynam-ics in mining areas. Keywords: Mining extent; Rare earth elements; Google earth engine; Landsat; Change detection; NDVI, geopolitics; Kachin State; Nujiang.