Abstract
Large-scale metal mining operations are planned or underway in many locations across the boreal forest biome in North America, Europe, and Asia. Although many published analyses of mining impacts on water quality in boreal landscapes are available, there is little guidance regarding terrestrial impacts. Scoping of potential impacts of Cu-Ni exploration and mining in sulfide ores are presented for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), Minnesota USA, an area of mostly boreal forest on thin soils and granitic bedrock. Although the primary footprint of the proposed mines would be outside the BWCAW, displacement and fragmentation of forest ecosystems would cause spatial propagation of effects into a secondary footprint within the wilderness. Potential negative impacts include disruption of population dynamics for wildlife species with migration routes, or metapopulations of plant species that span the wilderness boundary, and establishment of invasive species outside the wilderness that could invade the wilderness. Due to linkages between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, acid mine drainage can impact lowland forests, which are highly dependent on chemistry of water flowing through them. The expected extremes in precipitation and temperature due to warming climate can also interact with mining impacts to reduce the resilience of forests to disturbance caused by mining.
Highlights
Boreal forests are one of the world’s leading purveyors of ecosystem services including carbon storage and clean water [1]
Well-known cases of heavy metal pollution of forests via aerial deposition from smelting have occurred in North America and Europe [8,9], and unmitigated pollution from smelting is no longer common, these historic episodes of smelting provide basic information about ecosystem response to heavy metals
The complex ecological interactions caused by inserting an industrial complex adjacent to a wilderness area in a boreal forest landscape have not been well scoped, and few reviews of effects of have beenbeen published in comparison to aquatic reclamation mining on onforests forests have published in comparison toimpacts
Summary
Boreal forests are one of the world’s leading purveyors of ecosystem services including carbon storage and clean water [1]. The secondary footprint comprises adjacent areas affected through mining activities and changes in the landscape that can propagate ecological changes for various distances away from the primary footprint (Figure 1) This includes such items as fragmentation and changes in forest type within the primary footprint, changes in wildlife migration and habitat use patterns, noise, light, windblown dust, dispersal of invasive species established on the mine site, and watershed areas affected by water withdrawals and mine drainage [15]. The complex ecological interactions caused by inserting an industrial complex adjacent to a wilderness area in a boreal forest landscape have not been well scoped, and few reviews of effects of have beenbeen published in comparison to aquatic reclamation mining on onforests forests have published in comparison toimpacts.
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