Cows graze near an open-cast coal mine in Xilin Gol, Inner Mongolia. Xilin Gol boasts of some of China’s richest pastures in the country, however ever increasingly mining brings deterioration and disappearance as grasslands make way for the coal reserves that lay underneath.Ten billion cubic meters of water will be consumed by 16 new coal fired power plants and mines in China in 2015, triggering severe water crises in the country’s arid Northwest.