Land progressively rehabilitated

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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

Category

• Topographic information
• Impact assessment
• Change detection / continuous monitoring
• Land cover / use
• Near surface geology

• Surface deformation
• Precision ortho-images
• Terrain information
• Water quantity & quality

Uses

Design, Construction & Operations

• Continuous monitoring of rehabilitation steps and land cover evolution
• Flora and Fauna monitoring
• Crop health monitoring

Mine Closure & Aftercare

• Confirm rehabilitation to the original state or agreed endpoint

Challenges addressed

• Development and Operations – Affected Lands Status
• Closure and Aftercare – Environmental Monitoring
• Closure and Aftercare – Mapping of Infrastructure
• Closure and Aftercare – Affected Stakeholders

Geo-information needs

• DO-5: Land progressively rehabilitated
• CA-1: Demonstration of rehabilitation/revegetation;
• CA-2: Characterisation of flora and fauna;
• CA-4: Demonstration of infrastructure removal;
• CA-6: Demonstrate no impact on a special area of conservation;
• CA-8: Farming activities - confirm a return to baseline conditions for crops/animals

Description

The modern approach to managing sustainability is to adopt a strategy of progressive rehabilitation - where the mine operator rehabilitates lands on an ongoing basis. In other words, the land disturbed by mining activities is progressively returned to its original state or agreed endpoint.

Remote sensing data (such as optical and infrared imagery products) help in assessing the evolution (in time) of the land cover and the conducted rehabilitating steps by the mine operator. The manual interpretation of the imagery products allows for the digitalization of the nature of the ongoing rehabilitation steps and when they are being conducted. This product provides key information for the demonstration of rehabilitation/revegetation of the mining site to its original state.

Several optical sensors onboard satellites mentioned in the input data sources table (with varying spatial and time resolutions) can be used to detect the land progressively rehabilitated (dependent on the resolution required by authorities). Digitalization steps of the progressively rehabilitated land can be conducted by the direct ingestion of optical images into Geographic Information Systems software such as GIS and QGIS.

Known restrictions / limitations

In period of intense rehabilitation, a more frequent monitoring and a shorter period between reports might be required. Depending on the geography, climate and season, cloud coverage might be an issue in the investigation of the evolution of the rehabilitation and revegetation steps.

Lifecycle stage and demand

Exploration

Environmental Assessment and Permitting

Design, Construction and Operations

Mine Closure and Aftercare

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Environmental Assessment & Permitting:

• Information to establish a baseline for land cover
• Initially planned rehabilitation steps during the operational life cycle stage

Design, Construction & Operations:

• Continuous monitoring of rehabilitation steps and land cover evolution

Mine Closure & Aftercare:

• Provide information to confirm rehabilitation to original state or agreed endpoint

Geographic coverage

EARSC Thematic Domain

Domain

PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS

Input data sources

Website

NOTE: Airborne and drone imagery products (optical and infrared) for local and regional analysis might also be used in order to obtain higher image resolution.

Minimum Mapping Unit (MMU)

Minimum detectable feature size (dependent on input pixel resolution, ~1 - 3 px)

Accuracy / constraints

Thematic accuracy:

Progressively rehabilitated area should be detected from optical imagery in most cases (> 90%) if the area is larger than the minimum detectable feature size.

Spatial accuracy:

Dependent on input pixel resolution; typically ~0.5 - 1 pixel.

Accuracy assessment approach & quality control measures

Dependent on input pixel resolution; typically ~0.5 - 1 pixel.

Frequency / timeliness

Digitization of ongoing rehabilitation steps from imagery products can be completed within a few hours/days of work, dependent on how large the rehabilitated area disturbed by mining activities is.

Ongoing rehabilitation changes likely to be reported on a weekly to yearly basis.

Availability

Data from Sentinel satellites are freely available through the open data policy of the European Space Agency. Data is made available typically within 6-12 hours of satellite fly-over (similar for Landsat through NASA open data policy).

GeoEye-1, Worldview, SPOT and Pleiades data are commercially licensed and must be purchased through operator/vendor. Usually available within hour(s) of satellite fly-over.

Delivery / output format

Rehabilitation steps

Map showing the evolution (in time) of the rehabilitation steps at the mining site          Output: vector formats - shapefile, report on key indicators, client-specified spatial formats

Land cover

Map showing the evolution of land cover in time (as a response to the rehabilitation steps) Map showing the evolution of the vegetation in time (vegetation index)                                                 

Output: vector and raster formats - shapefile, GeoTiff, client-specified spatial formats.

USE CASE