This practice addresses underground coal mining extent geospatial data relative to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) and 30 CFR Part 700 et seq. This practice is significant to the coal mining community because it provides for uniformity of geospatial data pertaining to underground coal mine extents for mines located throughout the United States. These standards will help ensure uniformity of data contributed by each RA and assist organizations in future efforts to create and utilize geospatial data relative to underground coal mining extents in the United States. The first standard developed is Practice D 7384, Practice for Minimum Geospatial Data for a Coal Surface Mining Permit Boundary.

Underground mine geospatial data shall be obtained from State and Federal regulatory authorities for underground mining extents. The coal mining community encompasses all entities directly and indirectly affected by coal mining activities, including industry, environmental groups and the government at all levels within the United States. Use of this standard will help create consistent maps and increase awareness of underground mining extents throughout the United States. This standard creates well organized and easily accessible underground coal mining extents data, and it will lead to better communication between the RAs and federal offices, the public, industry and environmental groups.

As used in this practice, the geospatial data represents an area where coal removal occurred within a defined UCMO. An underground mine extent is defined as a polygon or polygons. A lack of data from any RA will create a gap in the national underground mining extents geospatial data set. This national coal mining data set consists of underground coal mining extents data from each RA, which will show the locations of underground coal mines throughout the United States. Currently, each coal producing state organizes their data in a different method, and their own naming conventions and terminology. By establishing national geospatial data standards, guidance is provided to RA coal mining programs that do not have any geospatial data standards of their own. This practice creates an easier and more efficient way to utilize and share underground mining extent geospatial data between RAs and the coal mining community.

If there is a lack of uniform practices among RAs, certain attributes of the underground coal mining extents data may not be present in some RAs's geospatial data. If this is the case, the finished data set for underground coal mining extents will appear to be incomplete for certain states, but in reality, some underground coal mining extents geospatial data will not be collected for those states, since it may not be applicable to them.

This standard conforms to the definition of a Data Content Standard as promulgated by the U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). Terminology and definitions for identifying geographical features and describing the data model have been adopted from the FGDC Spatial Data Transfer Standard and the FGDC Framework Data Content Standard (FGDC Project 1574-D) Information Technology-Part 5 Governmental unit and other geographic area boundaries.

Although this standard is written specifically for the underground coal mining industry, its general purpose and content may be applicable to other underground mining extents.