Abstract
Abstract. Abandoned mine sites pose the potential threat of the heavy metal pollution spread through streams and via runoff leading to contamination of soil and water in their surrounding areas. Regular monitoring of these areas is critical to minimise impacts on water resources, flora and fauna. Conventional ground based monitoring is expensive and sometimes impractical; spectroscopic methods have been emerged as a reliable alternative for this purpose. In this study, the capabilities of the spectroscopy method were examined for modelling soil contamination from around the abandoned silver-zinc mine located at Yerranderie, NSW Australia. The diagnostic characteristics of the original reflectance data were compared with models derived from first and second derivatives of the reflectance data. The results indicate that the models derived from the first derivative of the reflectance data estimate heavy metals significantly more accurately than model derived from the original reflectance. It was also found in this study that there is no need to use second derivative for modelling heavy metal soil contamination. Finally, the results indicate that estimates were of greater accuracy for arsenic and lead compared to other heavy metals, while the estimation for silver was found to be the most erroneous.
Highlights
It is recognised that heavy metals, especially lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic can cause severe damage to human health, e.g. cancer, lung damage, and neurotoxic effects (Järup, 2003)
Success in establishing a robust model between soil contamination and ground based spectral characterisation could form a basis for the development of a site specific spectral library that could be used to map a larger area through satellite based sensors
While sample 36 (S36) contains the highest amount of zinc, the highest amount of silver was measured for sample 23 (S23)
Summary
It is recognised that heavy metals, especially lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic can cause severe damage to human health, e.g. cancer, lung damage, and neurotoxic effects (Järup, 2003). The area has had a history of mining activities that commenced more than a century ago and in some cases continued into the 1990s (REF) Some of these mining activities in the BMNP have left a legacy of heavy metal contamination around abandoned mines due to inadequate remedial measures (REF). This study has focussed on the former Yerranderie silver-leadzinc mine and has examined the performance of ground-based spectroscopic data to identify a suitable dataset for quantifying the heavy metal contents of the soil in the vicinity of the derelict mine site. For this purpose the main contaminants in the soil samples were measured by chemical analysis. The original reflectance and its first and second derivatives were modelled to estimate heavy metals
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