A system dynamics-based approach to multi-dimensional damage reduction mining regulation and strategy in open-pit coal mines

The environmental damage caused by open‑pit coal mining—including land excavation and occupation, groundwater disturbance, dust emissions, and carbon cycle imbalance—is not a collection of isolated phenomena but rather a systematically coupled ecological damage process driven by mining activities and mediated through pathway interactions among subsystems. Elucidating the transmission pathways and coupling mechanisms of these multidimensional environmental impacts is essential for achieving damage‑reduction mining and promoting the green transformation of mining areas. This study uses the Heidaigou Open‑Pit Mine as a case study and employs system dynamics to develop a multidimensional dynamic model comprising four subsystems: land protection, low‑carbon development, dust control, and groundwater control. This model is used to simulate the dynamic responses of various environmental damage indicators under single‑factor adjustments and multiple combined scenarios, identify the key regulatory factors, and reveal the transmission pathways linking different subsystems. The results indicate that mining parameters such as mining depth, slope angle, and working bench length act as the primary drivers of environmental damage, simultaneously influencing land degradation, carbon emissions, dust emissions, and groundwater inflow through synergistic or opposing responses. Among these parameters, mining depth exhibits the highest sensitivity for damaged land area, carbon emission intensity, total dust emission, and mine water inflow. Scenario simulations demonstrate that the synergistic strategy of combined bench mining and deep working bench optimisation achieves the greatest overall reduction in environmental damage, reducing the damaged land area, total dust emission, and mine water inflow by 8.66, 7.71, and 13.41%, respectively, while providing only a limited reduction in carbon emission intensity. The three-tier elasticity analysis further indicates that the cross-system transmission from mining parameters to carbon emissions is dominated by the “dust generation - auxiliary diesel consumption” pathway, which accounts for 78.3% of the path weight - higher than that of rainfall runoff (19.0%) and groundwater inflow (2.7%). This indicates that dust load, rather than mine water inflow, is the key coupling pathway through which mining parameters drive carbon emissions. This study reveals the intrinsic mechanism through which common mining parameters drive multidimensional environmental damage in open‑pit mining and establish coupling among environmental subsystems through pathway interactions. It provides systematic and quantitative regulation methods and decision‑making support for damage‑reduced mining in open‑pit coal mines.