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Sustainable mineral resources management: from regional mineral resources exploration to spatial contamination risk assessment of mining

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Environmental Geology

Abstract

Wide-spread environmental contamination associated with historic mining in Europe has triggered social responses to improve related environmental legislation, the environmental assessment and management methods for the mining industry. Mining has some unique features such as natural background contamination associated with mineral deposits, industrial activities and contamination in the three-dimensional subsurface space, problem of long-term remediation after mine closure, problem of secondary contaminated areas around mine sites, land use conflicts and abandoned mines. These problems require special tools to address the complexity of the environmental problems of mining-related contamination. The objective of this paper is to show how regional mineral resources mapping has developed into the spatial contamination risk assessment of mining and how geological knowledge can be transferred to environmental assessment of mines. The paper provides a state-of-the-art review of the spatial mine inventory, hazard, impact and risk assessment and ranking methods developed by national and international efforts in Europe. It is concluded that geological knowledge on mineral resources exploration is essential and should be used for the environmental contamination assessment of mines. Also, sufficient methodological experience, knowledge and documented results are available, but harmonisation of these methods is still required for the efficient spatial environmental assessment of mine contamination.

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Acknowledgments

The assistance of the USA. Fulbright Program grant, the Hungarian-American Enterprise and Scholarship Fund grant and the Bolyai Janos Research Grant of the Hungarian Academy of Science are gratefully acknowledged. Help from Dr. Laszlo Kuti and technical assistance from Renata Varga of the Geological Institute of Hungary are recognised. Obtaining the great variety of source materials for this review paper was made efficient by the National Geological Library, Geological Institute of Hungary.

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  1. Geological Institute of Hungary (MAFI), Stefania ut 14, 1143, Budapest, Hungary

    Gyozo Jordan

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  1. Gyozo Jordan
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JRC PECOMINES Project

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Correspondence to Gyozo Jordan.

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Appendix

*JRC PECOMINES Project

(1) Joint Research Centre: Giovanni Bidoglio, Marco D′Alessandro, Tamas Hamor, Stefan Sommer, Panos Panagos, Marc van Liederkerke, Anca-Marina Vijdea.

(2) International Steering Group: Ognian Gubev (Ministry of Environment and Water, Bulgaria), Valeri Petrov Trendafilov (Ministry of Environment and Water, Bulgaria), Peter Rambousek (Czech Geological Survey), Marc Dusan (Ministry of Environment, Estonia), Peeter Eek (Ministry of Environment, Estonia) (Ministry of Environment, Estonia), Erki Nitlaan (Ministry of Environment, Estonia), Bela Fodor (Hungarian Geological Survey), Gyorgy Toth (Geological Institute of Hungary), Vladimirs Krutofals (Geological Survey of Latvia), Ingrida Kavaliauskiene (Ministry of Environment, Lithuania), Michal Gientka (Polish Geological Institute), Jacek Kasinski (Polish Geological Institute), Serban Veliciu (Geological Survey of Romania), Petru Georgel Stratulat (National Agency for Mineral Resources, Romania), Monika Lipovska (Ministry of Environment, Slovakia), Varta Janova (Ministry of Environment, Slovakia), Primoz Bizilj (Mining Admnistration, Slovenia), Dusan Marc (Ministry of Environment, Slovenia).

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Jordan, G., JRC PECOMINES Project. Sustainable mineral resources management: from regional mineral resources exploration to spatial contamination risk assessment of mining. Environ Geol 58, 153–169 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-008-1502-y

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