Assessing the environmental risk of mining enterprises by the integral indicator of dust emission

Abstract

Mineral mining leads to the following negative consequences: disturbance of soil cover and hydrological regime, formation of man-made relief, changes in the quality of land, inhibition of soil formation processes and reduction of soil self-purification capacity and others, and most importantly, pollution of large areas through industrial emissions and, above all, dust emissions. Almost all processing operations, such as blasting, drilling, excavation, transportation of rock mass, storage, performed at mining enterprises are accompanied by dust formation. The aim of this paper was to develop a methodology for the assessment of environmental risks posed by mining enterprises by the integral indicator of dust emission. The objects of research were the largest mining enterprises of the Irkutsk Region engaged in extraction of gold, iron ore, coal and building materials. We analyzed the geoecological situation in the area of industrial activity of the enterprises under study. In our work, we calculated the atmospheric dust pollution indices, the areas of distribution of dust emissions, dust load on personnel of the enterprises, and proposed an integral indicator of dust emission which allows assessing the environmental risks of mining enterprises and their degree of environmental impact. It has been established that coal mining enterprises belong to high-risk facilities and it is necessary to introduce innovative dust suppression technologies at different