Hydrogeological risk assessment for mineral exploration in Ghana: A brief overview

Abstract

Mining contributes to an increased tax revenues, export earnings, employment opportunities, infrastructure development, and transfer of technology to the host countries. However, there is a high risk of socio-economic enclaves or environmental damages caused by mining operations which include the release of heavy metals into water and soil resources, air pollution, land degradation, and depletion of vegetation. Mineral exploration is often preoccupied with integrating relevant datasets and utilising various techniques to discover subtle surface indications of mineralisation and usually results in huge disturbances of large surface area and underlying strata including aquifers. These issues with mineral exploration are pronounced in developing countries where the primary goal of many investors is to look for the occurrence of mineral of interest and its economic viability with little or no attention to the associated hydrogeological risk. Hydrogeological Risk Assessment, even though crucial to the development of sound environmental impact assessment for a proposed mineral exploration project, is often not included in mineral exploration activities. This could potentially result in a significant health risk and environmental impact which could negatively impact various communities within the mining areas. In this research, an overview of the various stages involved in evaluating and assessing the hydrogeological risk from the initial exploration stage has been provided. A framework that will enable a short-term to long-term integrated groundwater resources management system into mineral exploration projects have also been developed. This framework would provide valuable information to stakeholders to verify whether a proposed project is likely to be debilitating to hydrogeology in a locality.