Abstract

The area used for mineral extraction is a key indicator for understanding and mitigating the environmental impacts caused by the extractive sector. To date, worldwide data products on mineral extraction do not report the area used by mining activities. In this paper, we contribute to filling this gap by presenting a new data set of mining extents derived by visual interpretation of satellite images. We delineated mining areas within a 10 km buffer from the approximate geographical coordinates of more than six thousand active mining sites across the globe. The result is a global-scale data set consisting of 21,060 polygons that add up to 57,277 km2. The polygons cover all mining above-ground features that could be identified from the satellite images, including open cuts, tailings dams, waste rock dumps, water ponds, and processing infrastructure. The data set is available for download from 10.1594/PANGAEA.910894 and visualization at www.fineprint.global/viewer.

Measurement(s)

terrestrial mining

Technology Type(s)

satellite imaging

Sample Characteristic - Environment

land

Sample Characteristic - Location

Earth (planet)

Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: 10.6084/m9.figshare.12594248

Details

Title
A global-scale data set of mining areas
Author
Maus, Victor 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Giljum Stefan 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Gutschlhofer Jakob 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; da Silva Dieison M 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Probst, Michael 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Gass Sidnei L B 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Luckeneder Sebastian 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Lieber Mirko 2 ; McCallum, Ian 4 

1  Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Institute for Ecological Economics, Vienna, Austria (GRID:grid.15788.33) (ISNI:0000 0001 1177 4763); International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Ecosystems Services and Management, Laxenburg, Austria (GRID:grid.75276.31) (ISNI:0000 0001 1955 9478) 
2  Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Institute for Ecological Economics, Vienna, Austria (GRID:grid.15788.33) (ISNI:0000 0001 1177 4763) 
3  Federal University of Pampa (UNIPAMPA), Itaqui, Brazil (GRID:grid.412376.5) (ISNI:0000 0004 0387 9962) 
4  International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Ecosystems Services and Management, Laxenburg, Austria (GRID:grid.75276.31) (ISNI:0000 0001 1955 9478) 
Publication year
2020
Publication date
2020
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20524463
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-00624-w
ProQuest document ID
2440762930
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.