Guqiao Coal Mine is an underground coal mine operated by Huainan Mining (Group) Co., Ltd [4][5]. The construction started in November 2003 and went into production in April 2007 [4][5]. At the time of construction, it was the largest underground coal mine in Asia with 10 Mt/a design capacity. The coal produced at Guqiao coal mine is supplied to coal power plants in Huainan and within and outside Anhui Province [6]. Gubei coal mine is an underground coal mine in Tongying Village, Guqiao Township, operated by Huaizhe Coal & Electricity., Ltd. owned by Huaihe Energy Holding Group Co., Ltd [7][8]. The construction started in 2005 and was put into official production in August 2008. The approved production capacity of Guqiao and Gubei coal mine is 9 Mt/a and 4 Mt/a as of 2022 [4][8][9]. The coal produced at Gubei coal mine is supplied to Fengtai coal power plant (4x600MW) owned by the same parent company, Huaizhe Coal & Electricity [8].

The land subsidence started to take place around 2007 when the coal mines went into official operation [10]. Since the groundwater level is rather shallow in the Huainan area, and the ground surface may be lower than the water level after the coal mining subsidence, which makes the groundwater exposed to the surface and forms a subsidence area of ​​accumulated water like a “lake” [10]. One of the large-scale conflicts between local residents and the coal mining companies took place in early April 2009, when at least 1,000 villagers (some sources say 5,000) gathered and blocked the gate of Gubei coal mine and clashed with police [11][12][13]. According to local residents, the Gubei coal mine had caused land subsidence that affected 50,000 people in the area, with a total of 8,000 hectares suffering cave-ins [11]. Earlier in March 2009, the heads of five different administrative villages in the coal subsidence area in Guqiao Township published a petition letter in public named “Don’t let the farmers’ hearts subside” to publicize the issues in the area, including economic compensation, land compensation and relocation [11]. It was mentioned in the letter that the rental subsidy was far from enough to support families’ living and the compensation for destroyed land was also not enough to compensate for the loss of farmers’ livelihoods. While the existing disputes had not been addressed, the new mining plan from Gubei coal mine came into place and was expected to lead to one third of the township’s subsidence, which led to the intense conflict and protest in April 2009. In the process of addressing the conflict, the township allegedly sent 2000 questionnaires to local residents and none of the 1,700 effective responses agreed to subsidence and relocation [12][13].  It was announced on 14 April 2009 that the township (the center of the economic activities in the local area) would not be ”sacrificed”. However, the villages near the township that had already suffered from subsidence and the villagers still faced uncertainty in terms of relocation plan.

Gubei Township is home to and famous for its vinegar production [14]. However, the coal mining activities and land subsidence changed the local communities’ forms of livelihood. Over the years, more than 13,000 people across five villages in Guqiao Township were relocated [10][13][15]. While local residents received certain financial compensation, it was difficult to adapt to the new forms of life without access to farming land and their traditional forms of livelihood [1][3][15].

The coal mining and related companies’ environmental pollution issues also emerged in the media due to local residents’ complaints, including the pollution from waste water, solid waste such as coal gangue, coal transportation, among others [2][16][17][18]. The local environmental protection bureau in Fengtai County was acting irresponsibly in face of the pollution and the journalist’s inquiry [2].

While it is legally mandatory for coal mining companies to implement land reclamation, the government (above county level) usually takes up the responsibility of addressing the historical land subsidence issues [16]. It also takes years for the subsided land to become stable after the coal mining activities take place, which makes it even more difficult. As a result, most of the villages around Guqiao Township have been buried in water, with local residents relocated to newly built buildings around or more than 10km away and a few that stayed behind to pursue fishing or aquaculture as an alternative to farming [15]. In the early years after relocation, some residents would take up boats to come back to their old “homes” or to pay tribute to their ancestors on special occasions whose tombs had sadly sank into the water due to land subsidence [15]. It was reported that “the villagers could only watch helplessly as the ancestral graves sank into the water” [15]. In recent years, In December 2017, it was reported that the first 6MW of the 150MW floating solar project located at Guqiao township was successfully connected to the grid for power generation [19]. The project was invested by Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd. with CNY 1.5 billion [19].