Archival Mine-Plan Reconstruction and GIS-Based Interpretation of Spatially Variable Post-Mining Subsidence in the Petroșani Coal Basin, Romania

<jats:p>Historical underground workings in the Maleia–Livezeni sector of the Petroșani Coal Basin were reconstructed from four archival mining plans and a coordinate-referenced Drawing Exchange Format (DXF) dataset. Twelve extraction-sector polygons, principal galleries, exploitation limits, dated mining stages, and 567 validated mining-elevation annotations associated with Coal Seam No. 3 were integrated in a geographic information system (GIS) using the Romanian Stereo 70 coordinate reference system (EPSG:3844). Net elevation differences between 2007 and 2026 at seventeen surface benchmarks were used as response variables. Nearest-feature relationships and mining-exposure indicators for 50, 100, and 150 m neighbourhoods were evaluated using exploratory Spearman rank correlations. Cumulative gallery length within 50 m showed the strongest association with elevation-loss magnitude (ρ = 0.734, p = 0.0008, q = 0.010), while extraction-sector coverage and gallery length remained positively associated at broader scales. R19 showed the greatest immediate extraction-sector exposure, whereas R14, which recorded the largest elevation loss, was characterised by a broader concentration of surrounding workings. R09 recorded the smallest elevation change and was approximately 470 m from the nearest reconstructed extraction sector. Cumulative mining configuration was more informative than nearest-sector distance alone for interpreting spatially variable post-mining deformation and highlighted the limitations of archival GIS reconstruction.</jats:p>