Using Remote Sensing to Assess Impact of Mining Activities on Land and Water Resources

Abstract

Environmental impact assessment is now an integral part of mining operations. Remote sensing data enables the identification, delineating, and monitoring of pollution sources and affected areas, including derelict land, and changes in surface land use and to water bodies. The aim of this work was to evaluate the use of multi-temporal Landsat-5 and Landsat-7 images, SPOT Panchromatic, and ASTER data to map the natural environment on a local scale, and to assess the impact of mining activities by indicating the changes on land and water resources. Three case studies are presented: Lake Vegoritis and the Amynteon mine (both located in northern Greece) and the Lavrio mine area, in central Greece. We found that using high resolution satellite remote sensing data and state of the art GIS techniques with parallel development of a fully integrated geospatial database system provided monitoring and feedback at appropriate spatial scales; therefore, such data can be used for long-term environmental management and monitoring of reclamation and rehabilitation of mining areas.