Mining–induced ground fissures are one of the major geological disasters affecting coal mines. In recent years, many effective monitoring methods have been developed to explore the developmental characteristics and nature of mining–induced ground fissures for being treated scientifically. This paper is mainly on the development law and mechanism of mining ground fissure research results which have been comprehensively combed, highlighting the development trend, including the formation condition, development features, influencing factors, and mechanical mechanism of mining–induced ground fissures. Outstanding issues are discussed and future research hot spots and trends are pointed out. The major conclusions include: (1) under the shallow coal mining condition, because the rock layer fault zone directly reaches the surface, the ground fissure usually develops seriously; (2) mining–induced ground fissures are generally divided into four types: tensile fissures, compression fissures, collapsed fissures, and sliding fissures; (3) mining–induced ground fissures are affected by the coupling effect of underground mining and surface topography. The main factors are geological mining conditions, surface deformation, and surface topography, including rock and soil structure, rock and soil mechanical properties, surface horizontal deformation, surface slope, and so on; and (4) to ensure the safety of underground mining, temporary ground fissures formed during the process of coal mining must be treated when ground fissures and rock ground fissures are connected. The results of this article make up for the deficiencies of the relevant research, provide the basis and direction for future research, and have universal applicability and scientific guiding significance.

Coal mining can create a variety of environmental, ecological, and land-use problems. Subsidence areas resulting from coal mining are a common and particularly difficult problem to manage. Despite much discussion in the academic literature as well as among local and international stakeholders, there is neither a uniform standard nor a universally accepted approach for selecting an appropriate governance model for a subsidence area. In particular, the lack of quantitative evaluation methods and excessive subjectivity represent key obstacles to the effective selection of governance models for subsidence areas. This paper proposes a selection framework for a coal mining subsidence governance model that integrates the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and entropy weight method (EWM). The model comprehensively considers the settlement characteristics of the subsidence area, its geographic location, the water index, as well as the vegetation index. These variables are used as indicators to develop an evaluation framework upon which different subsidence zones can be quantitatively analyzed. The selection framework is demonstrated using examples from three subsidence areas in the Huainan and Huaibei mining areas in China, for which relevant data were collected and processed with the help of field surveys, remote sensing images, and subsidence prediction software. Applying the novel selection framework, the most suitable governance model for each subsidence area was obtained and determined to be consistent with the recommendations of an academic panel composed of multiple experts. The novel selection framework has high efficacy and potential to overcome the problem of subjectivity in the selection of governance models for coal mining subsidence areas. It is also envisaged that future incorporation of the selection framework into a user-friendly software package will significantly improve the efficiency with which suitable governance models for coal mining subsidence areas are selected.