Abstract
Using Satellite Data to Estimate Risk of Mercury Exposure in the Amazonian Wayana Language Territory between Suriname, French Guiana, and Brazil Daniel Peplow Abstract There is a need for methods that measure public and environmental health risk due to mercury from small-scale gold mines (SSGMs) at a regional scale in tropical forests. The synoptic regional-scale perspective of overhead remote imaging technology was used to supplement previous ground-level community risk and health assessment studies. The objective was to evaluate the usefulness of remote sensing as a method for measuring mercury impacts over large areas and test whether regional-level vegetation index values are lower in a test area where mercury contamination from SSGMs are known to impact human health compared to index values in a pristine reference area. Low vegetation index values were obtained in the test area compared to the high index values at the pristine reference location where vegetation stress is low suggesting remote sensing is a useful method for measuring mercury impacts, and the risk to human and environmental health, over large areas. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/ijhs.v9n3a1
Highlights
There is a need for methods that measure the public and environmental health risks of mercury from small-scale gold mines (SSGMs) at a regional scale in tropical forests
The objective was to evaluate the usefulness of remote sensing as a method for measuring mercury impacts over large areas and test whether regional-level vegetation index values are lower in a test area where mercury contamination from Small Scale Gold Mining (SSGM) are known to impact human health compared to index values in a pristine reference area
Vegetation index values were lower in the test area where there was mercury contamination from SSGMs when compared to a pristine reference area
Summary
There is a need for methods that measure the public and environmental health risks of mercury from small-scale gold mines (SSGMs) at a regional scale in tropical forests. As of 2008, environmental contamination by mercury from Small Scale Gold Mining (SSGM) activities was occuring in at least 77 countries [1,2,3]. Despite governments in the region becoming parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury, they have not yet implemented measures that effectively address a health and environmental crisis due to mercury poisoning that is produced by gold mining in the region [10]. The effects of mercury contamination occur at different scales and levels of biological organization and there are potential opportunities for intervention at each level [12, 13]. Since toxicity is a mechanism that operates at the molecular level, the degree to which cause and effect are related (i.e., specificity), the knowledge of the mechanisms of toxicity and apparent opportunities to design and implement appropriate and effective intervention measures is greater at the individual and community level
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