Research on Water-Conducting Fractured Zone Height under the Condition of Large Mining Height in Yushen Mining Area, China

Accurately predicting the development height of the water-conducting fracture zone (HW) is imperative for safe mining in coal mines, in addition to the protection of water resources and the environment. At present, there are relatively few fine-scale zoning studies that specifically focus on predicting the HW under high-intensity mining conditions in western China. In view of this, this paper takes the Yushen mining area as an example, studies the relationship between the water-conducting fissure zone and coal seam mining height, coal seam mining depth, hard rock scale factor, and working face slope length, finally proposing a method to determine the development height of the HW based on multiple nonlinear regression models optimized using the entropy weight method (EWM-MNR). To compare the reliability of this model, random forest regression (RFR) and support vector machine regression (SVR) models were constructed for prediction. The findings of this study showed that the results of the EWM-MNR model were in better agreement with the measured values. Finally, the model was used to accurately predict the development height of the hydraulic conductivity fracture zone in the 112201 working face of the Xiaobaodang coal mine. The research results provide a theoretical reference for water damage control and mine ecological protection in the Yushen mine and other similar high-intensity mining areas.