Despite massive growth in mining activity worldwide, efforts to assess the land use of mining at a global scale have been limited. Increasing satellite image quality and accessibility now permit detailed assessments of mine areas and their emerging geographical patterns. In this study, we produce a global-scale geospatial dataset of mine areas, comprised of 24,605 mine area polygons, mapped with high spatial precision in satellite imagery across 117 countries. Our dataset adds comprehensive detail on the global distribution, areal extent, and spatial form of mine areas, as well as new understandings of potential risks to surrounding areas. Our results reveal a total occupied land area of ~31,396.3 km², averaging 1.3 km² per site. To illustrate potential insights enabled by our datasets, we performed detailed assessments of the geographical distribution of global mine areas in terms of their spatial density, elevations, and areas relative to rivers basins, climate zones, and human development factors. Our study promotes increasing access to high-quality spatial data to facilitate more systematic global management of mine wastes, pollution and mine land management.

尽管全球采矿活动大幅增长，但在全球范围内评估采矿土地使用情况的努力仍然有限。提高卫星图像质量和可访问性现在允许对矿区及其新出现的地理模式进行详细评估。在这项研究中，我们生成了一个全球范围的矿区地理空间数据集，由 24,605 个矿区多边形组成，在 117 个国家/地区的卫星图像中以高空间精度绘制。我们的数据集增加了关于矿区的全球分布、面积范围和空间形式的全面详细信息，以及对周边地区潜在风险的新理解。我们的结果显示，总占用土地面积约为 31,396.3 km ²，平均为 1.3 km ^{2 。}每个站点。为了说明我们的数据集带来的潜在洞察力，我们根据空间密度、海拔以及与河流流域、气候带和人类发展因素相关的面积，对全球矿区的地理分布进行了详细评估。我们的研究促进了对高质量空间数据的更多访问，以促进对矿山废物、污染和矿山土地管理进行更系统的全球管理。