Abstract: The terrain change after mining is a practical problem faced by coal production， the mining subsidence in eastern plain area has been studied in detail. However， due to the influence of terrain factors in western mountainous area， how to accurately obtain the subsidence data and the law of surface change still need to be further discussed. In order to determine the law of terrain change in mountainous area under mining disturbance and provide technical support for geological disaster prevention and control in mining area， this paper takes the mining disturbance area of a mining face in western mountainous area as an example. Firstly， rapidly obtain the digital image of the research area by UAV， generate multi-phase digital elevation model （DEM）， get the subsidence basin of the survey area， and study the subsidence of the surface with the mining face. Then， DEM is used to extract the slope， aspect and relief information of the study area， and the overall change of the terrain before and after mining is obtained. The analysis results show that: the surface change in the study area is obviously affected by underground mining activities， specifically for the working face after mining， the overall slope becomes gentle， and the undulation decreases. With the mining of the subsequent working face， the slope and undulation increase， but the change is small. Using the characteristics of slope change to obtain the surface disaster causing points caused by underground mining， combined with the original elevation， original slope and mining subsidence， the distribution of disaster causing points is analyzed. It is found that the disaster causing points are mostly located on both sides of valleys and roads with higher altitude， smaller original slope and lower vegetation coverage. Through the analysis of the location of disaster causing points can provide technical reference for the follow-up slope treatment， road maintenance and land reclamation in the mining area. Keywords mining subsidence，DEM，UAV， terrain characteristics，disaster point

Key words: mining subsidence, DEM, UAV, terrain characteristics, disaster point