Risk Assessment of Coal Floor Water Inrush from Underlying Aquifers Based on GRA–AHP and Its Application

Ground water inrush from underlying coal seam aquifers is a serious geohazard during coal mining in China. In order to effectively predict coal floor water inrush, the evaluation index system and evaluation standard for coal floor water inrush, containing quantitative indexes and qualitative indexes, is established on the base of conditions of aquifer and aquiclude, geologic structure and mining disturbance. Simultaneously, grey relational analysis and analytic hierarchy process are used to establish an evaluation model which efficiently overcomes the uncertainty between indexes of water inrush effects and really reflects the degree of importance for each index of water inrush effects. The model is applied to the typical working face of Yuzhou coalfield in the north of China to demonstrate the evaluation process. Compared to the water inrush coefficient method which is widely used for evaluating coal floor water inrush, the presented evaluation model in this paper accords more with the susceptibility of coal floor water inrush by multi-factor and is of nonlinear dynamic characteristics of highly complicated formation mechanism. This method offers a new tool in the assessment of ground water inrush in mine.