Featured Application The shockwave soil-loosening device developed in this paper can effectively improve the aeration of the soil in crops' root zones. It can also significantly reduce the amount of carbon released during the tillage and soil-loosening process, which helps reduce agricultural carbon. We can expand this equipment into a shockwave hole fertilization device to conduct efficient hole-digging and fertilization operations on woody crops.Abstract When the soil at the plant roots is poorly ventilated due to few pores, the root system will grow short and shallow, leading to poor growth. In this paper, we developed a shockwave soil-loosening device. It can first drill a hollow drill bit containing multi-directional holes into the soil near the roots of the crops and then generate high-pressure gas to impact the soil outside the drill bit to increase the soil pores. Therefore, this can quickly improve soil aeration. We conducted numerical simulations of shockwave loosening to explore how 3.4 atm shockwaves are emitted from the drill bit's porous nozzles and analyze the behavior and efficiency of shockwave loosening. We also performed visual observation experiments of shockwave multi-directional impact in a transparent acrylic water tank. Furthermore, we used eight pressure sensors to automatically measure the range of shockwave impact and found that when the storage tank volume was 5000 cm3, we could achieve a soil loosening range of 30 cm. Finally, this shockwave-loosening mechanism ensures that the soil surface will not be damaged during the loosening process, thus avoiding large-scale tillage disturbance of the soil. This will reduce carbon emissions stored in soil and released into the atmosphere.

Coal has been crucial in driving economic development and production construction. However, the mining-induced subsidence may cause irreversible damage to the surrounding environment of vegetation growth. Meanwhile, with the worsening of global warming, the frequency and intensity of extreme water-related weather events, such as droughts and excessive rainfall, are on the rise, which leads to heightened impacts on ecosystems and agricultural production. Consequently, extreme water-related weather, the distribution of land subsidence, and its effect on vegetation have attracted significant attention. Based on the Sentinel-1 radar data and Sentinel-2 multispectral data from 2017 to 2022, the SBAS-InSAR technology, the object-oriented classification, and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were employed respectively in the study to obtain the spatial-temporal evolution of land subsidence, subsidence-induced water, and crop growth in Tiefa mining area, a representative coal mining area in Northeast China. Moreover, the relationship between land subsidence, subsidence-induced water, and vegetation change was analyzed combined with summer precipitation data. The results showed that: (1) The average cumulative subsidence of the mining area was 256.8 mm, and the subsidence area was 42.525 km2 for the six years. Among them, the heaviest subsidence reached a maximum of 380.5 mm in 2022, and the largest subsidence area was 20.109 km2 in 2017. (2) When the rainfall was excessive, the area of subsidence-induced water would increase sharply, with a proportion jumping to 9.71% from 5.37%, which indicated the subsidence would further amplify the destructive effect of excessive rainfall and waterlogging on land resources. (3) In addition to the existing water pits, ground cracks and shallow subsidence pits appeared under the influence of underground coal mining. The direct impact of ground cracks on crops was not apparent, while the effect of subsidence pits on crops under different rainfall conditions was dual character. In dry years, crops in the subsidence pits could grow better due to higher soil moisture. In wet years, crops in the subsidence pits would suffer the more severe waterlogging. The research results are of great significance for further understanding the influence of coal mining on surface vegetation in mining areas in Northeast China.