Conventional mine site investigation has difficulties in fostering location awareness and understanding the subsurface environment; moreover, it produces a large amount of hardcopy data. To overcome these limitations, the UMineAR mobile tablet applic...
Global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) provide a common positioning method that utilizes satellite signals to determine the spatial location of a receiver. However, there are several error factors in standalone GNSS positioning due to instrument...
Abandoned mining-related sites present threats to human health and the environment, while also being potentially valuable places for redevelopment. This paper examines whether successful sustainable redevelopment is more likely in metropolitan areas,...
The environmental legacy of mining operations presents significant challenges in managing impacts on ecosystems, public health, and safety. In Sardinia (Italy), the mining history has left a particularly severe burden of abandoned sites, making remed...
Former mining sites cause serious environmental problems worldwide as they are contaminated with hazardous levels of metals. Mined lands are characterized by a deserted landscape due to the lack of organic matter in soil. Research analyses confirmed...
The potential of rhizobacteria in assisting plants used in the phytostabilization or re-vegetation of soils contaminated by heavy metals is gaining interest all around the world. In this context, six rhizobacterial strains isolated from highly heavy...
Heaps of waste material constitute a serious environmental problem in regions where the historical exploitation and processing of metal ores has taken place. The presented paper describes the trace metal distribution in selected heaps in the lead-zin...
Restoration of anthropogenically disturbed soils is an urgent problem in modern ecology and soil biology. Restoration processes in northern environments are especially important, due to the small amounts of fertile land and low levels of natural succ...
In the watersheds of abandoned mining districts, it is common to find remains of former facilities and waste dams on stream banks and slopes—a situation that results in the transport and accumulation of metal(loid)s in alluvial deposits. To ana...
The lichen, Stereocaulon exutum Nylander, occurring in a contaminated abandoned mine site was investigated to clarify (1) the behavior of heavy metals and As during the slag weathering processes mediated by the lichen; and (2) the distribution of the...
Mineral precipitates forming downstream of abandoned and/or uncontrolled mine sites generally act as scavengers for heavy metals, such as As and Sb, leaking from the sites. This study reports the morphology of ocherous precipitate aggregates downstre...
In recent years, more and more expressways pass through the abandoned coal mine, while the surface residual subsidence of the abandoned coal mine threatens the operation safety of the expressway. It is of significance to evaluate the stability of the...
This study aimed to determine the potential of naturally occurring Cretan brake fern (Pteris cretica) as a biomarker and hyperaccumulator in an abandoned mine in Southwest Japan. This species is a known hyperaccumulator of As. Total concentrations of...
The oxidation of sulfide minerals in the presence of oxygen and water, facilitated by microbes, is the principal cause of acid mine drainage (AMD). Static testing for the quantitative assessment of the acidic potential and acid-neutralizing capacity...
Until 2008, the Aldermac mine was considered one of the most problematic abandoned mines sites in Québec due to the high production of acid mine drainage caused by mine tailings spread over a large area. The site was reclaimed between 2008 and...
Supply of resources, a growing population, and environmental pollution are some of the main challenges facing the contemporary world. The rapid development of mining activities has produced huge amounts of waste. This waste, found in abandoned mine s...
29 April 2021
The most important first step in the management and remediation of contaminated groundwater aquifers is unknown contaminant source characterization. Often, the hydrogeological field data available for accurate source characterization are very sparse....
The process of anthropogenic pedogenesis has necessarily become an important aspect of the study of today’s soils. The sustainable reclamation or remediation of soils degraded by industrial or mining activities is currently of great interest wo...
30 July 2020
The selection of plant species at mine sites is mostly based on metal content in plant parts. Recent works have proposed referring to certain ecological aspects. However, plant traits for plant metal-tolerance still need to be accurately assessed in...
Despite the long tradition of mining activities in Kosovo, there is still the a lack of policies for post-mining. Specifically, focusing on coal mining, this research analyzes the sustainable transition and post-mining management in the Ruhr Region,...
Land reclamation is a common practice leading to the restoration of areas affected by industrial activity. Soil studies in reclaimed areas are very useful to determine the effectiveness of reclamation works. The goal of the study was to investigate s...
1 December 2016
The use of portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) increases the rapidity and accuracy of soil contamination mapping, respectively. In practice, it is often necessary to repeat the soil...
The rehabilitation of abandoned mining sites is an increasingly pressing issue in the context of sustainable development. Recent research has emphasized the need for a holistic approach to the abandoned mining sites and their environmental rehabilita...
Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a major anthropogenic source of heavy metal discharge worldwide. However, little research has been carried out on the development of AMD in abandoned pyrite mines and the heavy metal contamination of mine surface water. Th...
Environmental databases play an essential role in the management of land and communities, including mapping and monitoring environmental hazards over time (i.e., abandoned mines). Over the last century, mines have closed for many reasons, but there h...
The abandoned mercury (Hg) mine area in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan was included in the list of abandoned and inactive mines in the Philippines which pose a high risk to human health and the environment, and require rehabilitation. The mine site, o...
Pollution from small historical mining sites is usually overlooked, in contrast to larger ones. Especially in the Arctic, knowledge gaps remain regarding the long-term mine waste impacts, such as metal leakage, on water quality. We study the small co...
Recently, the mining industry has introduced renewable energy technologies to resolve power supply problems at mines operating in polar regions or other remote areas, and to foster substitute industries, able to benefit from abandoned sites of exhaus...
Illegal gold mining is on the rise in the tropical Andes. The Santiago-Cayapas watershed is located in the north of the Pacific basin of Ecuador, in the Chocó biogeographical region. It is recognized for its high biodiversity, as 62 fish speci...
Mining activities often deem mine sites as temporary, leading to their eventual reclamation, rehabilitation, or abandonment. This study innovates by proposing the re-purposing of the disused Osarizawa mine in Akita, Japan, leveraging its consistently...
In order to improve the safety status and the quality of the landscape affected by surface mining, it is important that practical strategies for dealing with the excavations are identified. The aim of the work presented in this paper was to carry out...
As mineral resources are depleted, most mines are typically abandoned and left unattended, resulting in serious social problems that impede sustainable development of these areas. The mining industry has recently introduced the use of renewable energ...
The Australian landscape is affected by abandoned mines that pose environmental, public health and safety risks. To promote the beneficial reuse, rehabilitation and/or remediation of these sites and understand their spatial arrangement, we compiled,...
Previously conducted studies have established that soil contamination by trace elements (TEs) around coal mines affects ecological biodiversity and human health. One of the ways to protect the health of the surrounding population of coal mine sites i...
In recent years, the development of abandoned mining land has become a focal point in landscape planning. However, during the development of abandoned mining land, there often exists a phenomenon of prioritizing economic considerations over ecologica...
Acid mine drainage (AMD) prevention or remediation is a major issue of the environmental management of sulfide-bearing active and abandoned mining sites, the main sources of acidic waters being wastes and tailings. The present work intends to check a...
Mining activities often result in ecosystem degradation and landscape destruction. The restoration of abandoned mine lands is particularly challenging due to the poor physicochemical properties and low fertility of the soil, which necessitate the use...
This study analyzes the issue of mining brownfields (sites abandoned after the extraction of minerals) in terms of their secondary use after revitalization as potential new sites of mining tourism. In the first part of the paper, we deal with the the...
Critical and Strategic Raw Materials European Union’s policies are targeting the production of fundamental raw materials from internal sources, fostering the recovery of relevant quantities of materials from the existing mining facilities in Eu...
Globally, more than 60,000 abandoned open-pit mines have been identified. Most of these sites lack effective management or ecological restoration measures. As a result, they pose substantial environmental and socioeconomic challenges. Against this ba...
The island of Cyprus is famous for its rich deposits of volcanic mineralisation that yielded large quantities of copper, gold, and silver. The abandonment of the waste material in several dump sites during exploitation severely impacted the environme...
Inorganic contaminants, including potentially toxic metals (PTMs), originating from un-reclaimed abandoned mine areas may accumulate in soils and present significant distress to environmental and public health. The ability to generate realistic spati...
Mining operations, as with all industrial operations, have a significant impact on the environment both through the generation of waste and through landscape change. In view of this, pioneering and sustainable post-mining technologies are demanded to...
Abandoned sterile dumps can be a significant source of environmental pollution, therefore the distribution of trace elements throughout mining is vital. Monitoring environmental factors in closed mining perimeters aims to track the quality of dischar...
Resource-oriented cities are faced with the problems of the decline of traditional industries, exhaustion of resources, and wastage of space. Faced with these problems, urban renewal has become an important role and is widely used in the reuse of old...
Recycling of coal resources left behind in goafs and the treatment and utilization of solid waste from mines are topical issues faced by the global coal mining industry at present. With the annual reduction of recoverable reserves of coal resources a...
Plant diversity in relatively harsh environments, such as metal-polluted areas tends to be relatively low. Invasive plants may invade harsh environments more easily than native plants. However, studies often find fewer invasive species in stressful e...
This paper presents an underground silver mining operation outside Gomez Palacio, Durango, Mexico, terminated around the 1930s, of which previous knowledge of its operations was poor. Durango’s current silver exploration campaigns are likely to overl...
As they represent actual or potential risks to human and environmental safety and health, abandoned mines are a major global problem. The heavy metal-polluted tailings dump of Barraxiutta (Domusnovas, southwestern Sardinia, Italy) is home to a metall...
With globally more than 100,000 km2 impacted by surface mining at present, and with increasing demand for surface-mined products, land managers are challenged to address landscape degradation of decommissioned quarries, especially in urban areas. In...
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