It is of great significance for ecological environment protection to clarify the regional evolution characteristics of shallow water under the disturbance of multi-working face mining. In this paper, the catastrophe theory method, GIS spatial analysis function and FEFLOW numerical calculation method were comprehensively used to study the instability risk and evolution law of shallow water systems in the Zhuan Longwan Coal Mine. The results show that: the Zhuan Longwan Coal Mine is divided into five areas (small risk area, light risk area, middle risk area, heavy risk area and special risk area) based on catastrophe theory, among which the middle risk area has the largest area of 16,616,880 m², and the special risk area has the smallest area of 1,769,488 m². Based on the results of catastrophe zoning, the evolution law of shallow water under multi-surface disturbance in different zones is expounded. In the middle-risk area, the water level drop at measuring point 4 is the largest, which is 0.525 m, and the water level drop at measuring point 5 is the smallest, which is 0.116 m. The study aims to provide a basis for regional coal development planning and research on the method of water-retaining coal mining.

China is endowed with a large quantity of residual coal resources that require upward mining. The stability of interburden strata structures and accurate determination are crucial for safe mining. Therefore, we established a mechanical model of disturbed voussoir beam structures of interburden strata in upward mining. The model was solved, and stability analysis and instability mechanism analysis were conducted. Based on this model, a new method for determining the feasibility of upward mining was proposed and applied to the upward mining of coal seam No. 7 in Baijiazhuang Coal Mine. A physical simulation experiment and numerical simulation were conducted to validate the method. Through research, it was found that the model had two instability mechanisms: rotation instability and sliding instability. When the disturbance load crossed the critical block of the structures, the model was most likely to experience sliding instability. When the disturbance load acted entirely on the critical block, rotation instability was more likely to occur. The result of the determination, performed using the new method, showed that there was no rotation instability or sliding instability in the interburden strata structures of coal seam No. 7, indicating that the coal seam could be mined upward. This result was consistent with the determinations using the statistical method, “three-zone” method, and balanced surrounding rock method. Physical and numerical simulations revealed that the upward mining of coal seam No. 7 caused the subsidence, rotation, and separation compaction of the interburden strata structures but that the structures remained stable. The results indicate that the proposed model and method have accuracy and applicability, being able to guide the practical feasibility determination of upward mining.

The sustainability of shallow groundwater systems, pivotal to maintaining ecosystem equilibrium and facilitating the sustainable development of mine sites, is the core of various dynamic indicators in response to mining activity and mining area planning. This study quantitatively evaluates the impact of mining activities on shallow groundwater systems at the orefield scale, taking the equivalent permeability coefficient (EPC) of “Soil–Rock” composite water-resisting strata and the response mechanism of shallow groundwater in multi-mine mining as the entry points. A modified six-step evaluation method for the response mechanism of shallow groundwater in multi-mine mining is proposed using mathematical statistics, numerical simulation, and theoretical analysis methods. The method is used to evaluate the sustainability of the shallow water system in the Yushen mining area, to study the distribution characteristics of the water resource carrying capacity (WRCC) in different mining areas of the Yushen area, and to analyze the number of mines allowed to be mined under geological conditions with a WRCC of more than moderate bearing capacity. The results show that when the mining area of a mine in the Yushen area is set to 1 × 10⁸, 7.5 × 10⁷, 5 × 10⁷, and 2.5 × 10⁷ m², as the mining area of the designed mine decreases, the area bearing surplus gradually increases, with values of 1.70 × 10⁹, 1.98 × 10⁹, 2.28 × 10⁹, and 2.58 × 10⁹ m². The number of mines allowed to be mined under geological conditions with a WRCC above moderate capacity is 20, 31, 51, and 112, respectively.