{"id":1150198,"date":"2019-11-17T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1007015"},"modified":"2019-11-17T09:00:28","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T15:00:28","slug":"artisanal-gold-mining-polluting-peruvian-biodiversity-hotspot-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1150198","title":{"rendered":"Artisanal gold mining polluting Peruvian biodiversity hotspot -study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at Dartmouth College analyzed satellite data and discovered that artisanal mining is altering the water clarity and dynamics of the Madre de Dios River watershed in the Peruvian Amazon.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In a <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"paper  (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/early\/2019\/11\/05\/1907842116\/tab-figures-data\" >paper<\/a> published in the<em> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>, the researchers explained that higher levels of suspended sediment were found in rivers near the mining sites. The sediments contain mercury and other contaminants.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/programme.worldwaterweek.org\/Content\/ProposalResources\/PDF\/2019\/pdf-2019-8358-3-Fernandez%20SIWI%20PPT%20-%2008.27.19_compressed.pdf\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation (opens in a new tab)\">Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation<\/a>, Canada\u2019s NGO Artisanal Gold Council has registered that some 181 tonnes of mercury are released into the environment every year in the Madre de Dios region.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Scientists consider the Madre de Dios River area one of the most understudied tropical biodiversity hotspots in the world<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Such a massive, cumulative amount of pollutants is showing its effects now. \u201cSignificant impacts to rivers were observed as a result of the artisanal scale gold mining, with as much as 10 times normal suspended sediment concentrations\u2014a measurement of how many sediment particles are in the water,\u201d the Dartmouth scientists said in their report.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to their study, though higher sediment concentrations were observed year-round, they were most pronounced during the dry season, when undisrupted rivers in this region of southeastern Peru generally run clear, with low sediment concentrations as compared to the wet season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost artisanal-scale gold mining in Madre de Dios is conducted during the dry season, as the heavy machinery that is required to clear the land for operations cannot be used during the wet season. As a result, the mining activity is triggering a reversal of natural seasonal cycles, turning clear water muddy and disrupting the hydrological activity of the riverine ecosystems,\u201d the experts wrote.<\/p>\n<h3>How they did it<\/h3>\n<p>To reach these conclusions, the Dartmouth scholars used satellite imagery from 1984 to 2018 at 32 river reaches in the Madre de Dios River watershed, which is located near the largest tributary to the Amazon, the Madeira River. This effort meant analyzing over 15,500 samples from 3,200+ NASA LandSat images, including images of the same sites through time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Based on the spectral reflectance properties of rivers and sediment, the estimated amount of sediment was calculated using algorithms developed for the study, and changes were tracked over the 34-year study period.<\/p>\n<p>The findings demonstrated that 16 of 18 stretches of rivers near artisanal-scale gold mining areas had higher levels of suspended sediment concentrations. By comparison, for the 14 sites studied that had not been affected by mining, only five were found to have higher levels of sediment over time. The increase in sediment in rivers downstream of the artisanal scale gold mining areas was found to be related to the area of upstream land being mined.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThough these mining operations are called \u2018artisanal,\u2019 they are occurring on a widespread scale, and our data shows that sediment introduced into the rivers of the Madre de Dios region is profoundly changing important natural systems,\u201d Evan N. Dethier, the lead author of the study said in a media statement. \u201cSimilar to deforestation for agriculture elsewhere in the Amazon, these mining operations are rapidly destroying pristine rainforest. However, we have found that gold mining has a far greater impact on river water quality than deforestation for agriculture, due to intensive sediment disruption directly in the rivers themselves, and through the use of mercury in the mining process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A previous <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"study (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/cincia.wfu.edu\/publicaciones\/resumenes-de-investigacion\/tres-decadas-de-deforestacion-por-mineria-aurifera-en-la-amazonia-suroriental-peruana\/\" >study<\/a> by the Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation had also found that, between 1985 and 2017, illegal mining caused the loss of almost 100,000 hectares of forest in Madre de Dios. This finding was later corroborated during a flyover mission carried out by the Amazon and National Surveillance Centre, which is run by the Peruvian Air Force.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA LandSat images revealed that the Madre de Dios River watershed has up to 10 times the normal suspended sediment concentrations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[369,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1150198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1150199,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150198\/revisions\/1150199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1150198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1150198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1150198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}