Combined PS-InSAR Technology and High-Resolution Optical Remote Sensing for Identifying Illegal Underground Mining in the Suburb of Yangquan City, Shanxi Province, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

  This paper is a nice work to identify the illegal underground mining with PSI and high resolution optical images. A few suggestions are made as follows.

1. Is there the spatial location deviation between the detected illegal coal mining site and the actual underground mining location？How to explain this problem.

2. Is there a reference to others in Figure 4? If so，a reference should be cited.

3. The language of this paper should be improved by an English native speaker to make this paper more acceptable.

The language of this paper should be improved by an English native speaker to make this paper more acceptable.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In the article "Combined PS-InSAR Technology and High Resolution Optical Remote Sensing for identifying illegal underground mining in Suburb of Yangquan City, Shanxi Province, China", research was carried out to identify areas where illegal mining is carried out under existing houses. The authors verified their results with the historical data obtained in Shandi Village.

The proposed algorithm for using radar and optical data to identify illegal coal mining may have practical applications. However, technical use requires automation of work. The idea is interesting and the analysis is well-performed and scientifically correct.

Specific comments:

1) The article states that the proposed algorithm allows detecting places suspected of illegal mining in 66.67% and that an accuracy rate of 40% has been achieved in local areas. Please specify whether the figure of 66.67% applies to the entire area of China and how large a range of cases was analyzed and from what period.

2) From which period ALOS PALSAR radar data were analyzed? From 2006 or 2008? (line 135, Table 1). It is proposed to add a frequency of PALSAR data (46 days).

3) According to the reviewer, it is not necessary to show the difference between optical and radar data in Figure 2 (this is basic knowledge).

4) According to the reviewer, chapter "3.1.1 Extraction of building elements in mining area based on optical remote sensing"(line 172) needs to be extended. The use of the SegNet segmentation model to extraction building elements is presented too vaguely. The chapters „Result” and "Extraction of building contours by optical images" contain information about the parameters used. Were the QuickBird02 (2008 yrs.) and Worldview02 (2010 yrs.) images analyzed independently.

6) Has a comparison of changes in the development been made?

5) Line 179-180 "Second, the characteristics of the ground features in the images were analyzed and a 179 sample database was built for the extraction." – what additional features were analyzed?

6) Line 406 - date error (2018 - 2008).

 

7) What is the relationship between the period, the area of research and the current situation?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf