煤炭开采业为国民经济发展提供了约三分之二的能源，但也是生态环境公害最严重的行业之一。然而，对矿山环境问题的研究一直集中在开采方案确定后的环境评价以及开采后的环境治理与生态重建等“末端”，不能有效实现环境冲击的“源头减量化”。本项目站在矿山项目的“前端”， 把“为环境设计”的理念具体应用于煤炭露天开采，基于采矿学、环境和生态经济学、运筹学等开展交叉研究，解决煤炭露天开采的环境冲击量化、环境成本核算、环境成本内生化的开采方案整体优化等关键问题，建立真正实现环境成本内生化的露天煤矿开采方案整体优化模型与算法体系，使环境成本在最佳开采方案的求解中直接发生作用，实现经济和环境效益最大化的开采方案优化。本项目打破了单纯把经济效益最大作为优化目标的一贯做法，是露天煤矿基本设计理念的一次突破，具有鲜明的学术创新；成果也将为煤炭开采业践行“为环境设计”的理念提供理论方法和手段，具有重要的应用价值。

The coal mining industry provides some two-thirds of the total energy demand for national economic development and, at the same time, is one of the industries that produce the most severe ecological and environmental damage. However, research efforts addressing environmental problems of mining has been focused on “end of pipe” measures, mainly consisting of environmental impact assessment after completing a mine design and environmental and ecological rehabilitation after mine closure. Such practices cannot effectively achieve the goal of “source reduction” in environmental impacts. This research project stands at the “starting point” of a mining project and applies the concept of “design for the environment” to open pit coal mining. It is a multi-disciplinary study, based on mining technology, environmental and ecological economics, and operations research, that aims at solving key problems of quantifying environmental impacts and environmental costs, and truly internalizing environmental costs in the optimization of mine plans for open pit coal mines. A system of optimization models and algorithms will be developed in which, the environmental costs will play a direct role in the process of solving for the optimal mine plan, achieving the goal of maximizing both economical and environmental gains. The proposed research project goes beyond the common practice of taking the maximization of pure economic gains as the objective of optimization, and represents a breakthrough in the basic concepts of open pit coal mine design. Thus, the project is academically innovative. Results from this research project will also have application values by providing theoretical methods and applicable tools for practicing “design for the environment” in the coal mining industry.