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GEO-INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR SUSTAINABLE MINING DEVELOPMENT AT VARIOUS SCALES
Abstract
Mining-related environmental problems should be studied not only at site scale (as imposed by most environmental regulations), but also at a regional scale, enabling satisfactory solutions to be found from the environmental and socioeconomic viewpoints. The regional environmental assessments by BRGM in collaboration with the Indian Bureau of Mines in 2000 are a good illustration of what can be achieved at the scale of a mining district. At a larger scale, the Environmental GIS of Central Europe shows the possibilities, but also the limits, of such geo-information systems for assessing and predicting environmental impacts related to mining activities. The integration of geological, metallogenical and mineralogical data with information concerning land use, water and soil quality, and geomorphology appears to be an efficient basis for outlining the main opportunities for mining development while incorporating environmental priorities, such as avoiding risks of acid mine drainage or heavy metals pollution.
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References1
and some field expertise. The knowledge of ore, gang and alteration mineralogical assemblage allow an estimation, using the Infobase, of the conten t in main pollutants (As, Cr, Pb, Se, Ni, Sb). An equivalent to METOX index can thus be calculated in or der to compare the heavy metal risk of each deposit. This is illustrated on figure 4. As we also have information regarding the presence of sulfidic or oxidized ore and regarding th e lithology of host rock and consequently the acid buffuring capacity of the host rock, it was possible to estimate an acid drainage risk for each deposit. In case of lack of mineralogi cal information, the InfoBase allows the estimation of theoric pollutant content us ing only the typology of deposits (e.g. low sulfidation epithermal deposits usually contain mercury). Fig. 4 : AMD and heavy metal risks computed from geological and mineralogical data. The next stages of this project will consist in: • the evaluation of waste quantity and waste composition from our knowledge of the metal production, methods or date of production. This parameter will furnish a “ponderation” for the two previous calculated parameters. • The comparison between the calculated risks and the observed impacts, using the data from the monitoring networks. Part of the approach has started within a specific watershed, thanks to the collaboration of the Slovakian BHF- International Conference
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