Abstract
Land-reuse planning after coal mining must distinguish restoration needs, evidential readiness and the ability to fund continuing obligations. This study examines that distinction through 69 Chinese mine-area units, six purposively selected coal-related electricity statements and one monthly monitoring report for 13 plants within a single base. Recalculation of the inventory reveals 22 distinct substantive score profiles. Separating data completeness from physical restoration difficulty changes the screening category of 7 units; a 20% perturbation of one indicator weight changes up to 10 categories. Thus, complete scoring does not imply stable prioritization. We connect this screening diagnosis to non-compensatory land-use prerequisites and a task-based restoration-funding condition. Capacity-denominator reconciliation changes normalized electricity output by 0.06–15.01% in the monitored dataset. In the Huainan demonstration, floating photovoltaics and aquatic recovery remain unresolved but require different investigations. A discounted funding extension shows how degradation and additional dated obligations can remove an apparent maintenance surplus. The contribution is an auditable separation of investigation priority, alternative-specific eligibility and financial coverage under incomplete evidence. The findings support conditional documentary planning rather than national rankings, validated project profitability or observed ecological recovery.