Lost but Not Forgotten: Identifying Unmapped and Unlisted Environmental Hazards including Abandoned Mines

Kieran P Young,Leigh J Martin,Megan L Murray,Brad R Murray

doi:10.3390/su131911011

Abstract

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 has been no comprehensive database of the locations of closed and abandoned mine sites kept for many regions of the world. As such, the locations of many mines have been lost from public knowledge, with no way for managers to assess the risks of land and water contamination, as well as subsidence. To address this knowledge gap, we present an integrated framework for identifying abandoned mine sites using a combination of satellite imagery, historical records, geographic evidence, and local knowledge. We tested this framework within the Newcastle, Illawarra, and Lithgow regions of NSW, Australia. We identified 61 abandoned coal mines which are currently unaccounted for in mine registries, with 56% of all mines in the Newcastle region being unmarked (N = 32), 36% in the Illawarra region (N = 22), and 20% in the Lithgow region (N = 7). These findings demonstrate that our framework has promising utility in identifying historic and unmarked environmental hazards in both national and international contexts.

Highlights

Environmental databases can provide a historical reference of species and conditions, often utilized to create and test models to predict future change and impacts [1,2,3,4]
Seven of these sites are currently considered to be high risk to both human health and the environment [32]. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of information regarding location and condition of many abandoned mines, with NSW lacking a sufficient database of relevant information [30]
As the aim of this research was to focus on ceased mining operations, the NWC was not included in this study

Summary

Introduction

Environmental databases can provide a historical reference of species and conditions, often utilized to create and test models to predict future change and impacts [1,2,3,4]. A common goal of public databases is to accurately collect and organize large volumes of data in ways that will allow continuous updating. This is done using open-source web-based systems which can be accessed and edited by relevant responsible stakeholders. When databases are regularly updated with fresh and relevant information, large scale trends and patterns may become more apparent, leading to better decisionmaking capabilities. In this context, accurate information regarding particular environmental risks and degradation may be difficult to obtain. This is because records may be incomplete or absent, where hazardous industrial activities may have been conducted prior to the introduction of modern approval and regulatory processes

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Discussion

Conclusion