Special Issue "Management and Monitoring of Water and Soils Associated with Mining Activities"
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Quality and Contamination".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2023 | Viewed by 5509
Special Issue Editors
Interests: environmental geochemistry; surface and groundwater management; environmental impact of mining activities; water and soil contamination, risk assesment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: environmental geochemistry; industry impact on the environment; ecological and health risk assessment; geochemistry of trace elements
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In many parts of the world, water and soil resources are at risk, mainly due to climate change, population growth, overexploitation, mining activities and agricultural practices. Ensuring aequate access to natural resources, in terms of both quantity and quality, is one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Mining acitivities is one of the major environmental issues that often causes complete degradation of ecosystems during and/or after mine closure. Globally, significant amounts of potential toxic elements could pose a great threat to the populations living near to and even far away from mines, as these elements can travel across large distances.
Despite several developments in recent decades, the mineral extraction sector is facing new challenges associated with environmental geochemistry in the mining environment, from the prediction of water and soil quality to mine site reclamation/closure and monitoring.
This Special Issue aims to cover the diversity of research associated with integrated water and soil assessment and monitoring, including innovative approaches and new perspectives with practical applications related to the environmental geochemistry in the mining environment. Papers providing examples of the methodological challenges and the novel tools for monitoring and management of water and soil associated with mining areas are welcome.
Prof. Dr. Margarida Antunes
Prof. Dr. Alicja Kicińska
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- availability, mobility and dispersion of potential toxic elements in mine areas
- space-time patterns to understand geochemical processes
- water and soil contamination indexes
- fingerprints of soil and water in mine areas
- environmental risk assessment of water and soil
- ecological and health risk assessment
- emerging contaminants in mine water
- acid mine drainage and metal-removal mechanisms
- geochemical modelling and geochemistry of mining wastes
- risks and sustainable management of mining environmental liabilities
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: A model-based approach to risk evaluation and the assessment of protection provided by water intake and treatment systems
Authors: Alicja Kicińska; Ewa Wysowska
Affiliation: AGH University of Science and Technology, Department of Environmental Protection, Mickiewicza 30 av., 30–059 Krakow, Poland
Abstract: This study presents an assessment of the protection provided by water intake and treatment systems against potential health risk to water consumers. To perform the assessment a case study was conducted involving modelling and risk assessment based on scenarios of decreasing water quality at the intakes (i.e. emergency situations). The study sites were two continuously operating water treatment plants in Southern Poland (CEE). The study material were the results of tests conducted in the years 2012–2019 on samples of water taken directly at the intakes and samples of treated water. The samples were used to determine the concentration of selected metals (Cd, Cr, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn), organic pollutants (benzo(a)pyrene, benzene, acrylamide, epichlorohydrin, vinyl chloride and 1,2-dichloroethane) and bacteriological pollutants (Coliform bacteria, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecali and Clostridium perfringens). The non-carcinogenic (HI) and carcinogenic (CR) hazard indexes were estimated based on the quality of water at the intake using linear regression models. The risk values obtained were compared with permissible values specified in the US EPA methodology. It was demonstrated that the concentrations of the xenobiotics analysed in treated water would have to increase 11 times in the case of adults and 29 times in the case of children before the risk level related to drinking water exceeded permissible values. In the least favourable exposure scenario modelled, assuming the presence of organic xenobiotics in potable water, the total HI amounts to only 10% of the permissible value in adults and 1.5% in children. The total CR calculated for the 3-times lower water quality did not exceed permissible values, which proves that the water treatment systems are safe.
Title: Slate Quarry Pit Lakes in Abandoned Mining Areas of NW Spain: Characteristics and Potential Use
Authors: Redondo-Vega, J.M., Santos-González, J., Gómez-Villar, A., Melón-Nava, A., Peña-Pérez, S.A. (1), González-Gutiérrez, R.B.
Affiliation: Departamento de Geografía y Geología, Universidad de León.
(1) Servicio de Cartografía, Universidad de León.
Abstract: Human activities play a key role in landscape evolution. Mining is one of the most important since it changes large parts of the Earth's surface. In abandoned mines and quarries, pit lakes are quite common due to water table blocking. These lakes have remarkable ecological characteristics, but they are not very well-known.
Northwestern Spain has a long tradition in the use of slate for the roofs of buildings, which was extracted by hand. The industrial exploitation of slate began in the mid-20th century when the largest slate deposit in the entire Western Europe was discovered due to its abundant reserves and its high quality. Since then, its continuous extraction has been carried out to supply roofing slates to the European and North American markets. The exploitation, mostly open pit, has caused a great transformation in the landscape of those mining areas of the provinces of Orense, Lugo, and León, with the mining pit lakes being one of its hallmarks when the quarries are abandoned.
Most of these pit lakes were totally unknown until now and they were not included in inventories or maps. Potential uses (water storage for several uses, recreational use, wildlife habitat, geological heritage sites) for these quarry pit lakes and their significance as a new geo-ecological environment are being discussed.
Title: Bayesian machine learning and functional data analysis as a two-fold approach for the study of acid mine drainage events
Authors: Riguera et al.
Affiliation: University of Vigo (Spain).
