Monitoring Mining Sites by Satellite Images

The assessment of the environmental impact of a mining site over surrounding areas can be evaluated through the use of a proper modelling. Models must rely on a mathematical description of the territory, allowing to take into account several features, treated such as point, linear or areal elements. In this context, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are a very powerful working environment, allowing to realise a mathematical description of the territory to analyze and model the relationships existing between the different detected features. Satellite data can thus be considered as a key source, allowing the analysis of both existing and historical situation with an high level of detail, thanks to today’s commercial availability of satellite data acquired at a very high resolution. In the framework of the Extract-It project (ASIA IT&C European Programme), the analysis of the environmental impact of mining sites, adopting the proposed approach, has been carried out over three areas located in China, India and Thailand. Analysis have been developed within a GIS environment, based on data collected by multi-mission satellite images, integrated with information directly collected on site. The strategies adopted, and some of the results achieved, with reference to the Indian mine site are presented. Results showed the key role of satellite data acquistion and analysis in the process.