Though China's reliance on coal contributed to its meteoric economic development, it's also proving to have a negative impact on the health of the country's citizens and its environment. In this article, I'll discuss some negative impacts of coal mining on the environment, specifically as it impacts the Shaanxi Province of Northern China.

Water Stress

Northern China houses the majority of China's coal mines. At least 80 percent of this coal comes from regions that the United Nations designates as "water stressed," such as the Shaanxi province.

Northern China's intensive mining industry has depleted its water supply, because coal production requires water to extract, wash, and sometimes transport the coal. The remaining water sources are often polluted with coal ash. Water is also relatively cheap in China. It is usually priced at a tenth of Europe?s price, and, as a result, water is often wasted. The government places lax regulations, if any, on the water usage of Shaanxi coal factories. Because factories often do not bear the costs of water shortages and polluted water, they have little incentive to help alleviate water scarcity in the area.

Current Chinese government plans to drastically increase the nation's coal-derived energy output by 2020, would place further stress on the water supply of Shaanxi.

Geological disruption

In the process of coal mining, producers often deforest and strip bare the vegetation of land they are going to excavate for coal, which allows weather to erode the soil and deplete the soil?s nutrients. Infertile soil negatively affects the growth of plant matter, decreases biodiversity, and increases the likelihood of natural disasters like mudslides or landslides occurring in areas near excavation sites. Collapsing mines may also cause shifts in the land that could result in infrastructural damage to homes, buildings, highways, and bridges.

The Yungang Grottoes in China's Shaanxi Province bear the costs of the area?s soil erosion. A UNESCO Heritage Site and one China?s most famous Buddhist sculptural sites, the Grottoes are located next to a road frequented by as many as 16,000 coal trucks daily. The acidic coal dust stirred up by the trucks settles on the Grottoes and corrodes the monuments.

Agriculture

Agriculture suffers not only from the infertile soil resulting from soil erosion, but also the particulate matter produced by coking plants.

 Initially, coking plants introduced to Linfen, Shaanxi in 1980 gave the city?s residents an economic advantage. Now, coking plants have polluted the air with 2.5 M particulate matter, which is toxic to agricultural crops. Shi and Mrs. Chang, who live in Linfen, say that, ?We used to be able to gather about 1000 jin (500 kg) of corn, and now we only get 700 or 800. 

Furthermore, 2.5 PM are particles small enough to enter peoples' bloodstreams directly. Once in the bloodstream, they can harm farmers' bodies, leading them to work less productively than if they were healthy. 

A possible solution would be to subsidize alternatives to coal such as solar energy. Government Subsidies would encourage the coal production industry to adopt more efficient technologies over time, allowing for less harmful use of coal in the future. The Chinese government is already heavily subsiding solar energy, and, in the far future, the price of solar may drop beneath the price of coal. Other policy and economics solutions exist, but I won't go into them here. If you are interested in knowing about them, please contact me.

Like always, I have sources if you want to see them! Please leave any feedback or suggestions in the comments below.

Thanks for reading,

Jane