The Key Roles of Remote Sensing Techniques for Evaluating Environmental Issues Posed by Mining: a Case Study

The tremendous need for mineral resources rooting from the rapid population growth and economical development in china has greatly accelerated exploitation of various minerals for last two decades, as a result, a broad array of environmental problems related to human mining activities, such as air and water pollution, land resources and inhabited environment devastation generated by land subsidence, and other hazards posed by landslide etc, increasingly puzzled us all, and furthermore, as the population and economy continue their rapid growth in the near future, pressures on the environment will still increase as well. Therefore, for continuously improving standard of people’s living by means of maintaining rapid and harmonious economic development, a new economic development strategic plan to deal with the challenging dilemma between mineral resources and environment should be shaped and carried out according to present real environment status posed by human mining activities. Fortunately, the new innovation about remote sensing technology, especially the practical application of high resolution satellite photographs, has allowed us to capture, store, process and display an unprecedented amount of information about our environment rapidly and efficiently. In this paper, by a case study about a small region Northeast CHINA, we carefully investigate the key roles act by remote sensing techniques in evaluating environment issues related to human mining activities. Resumptively, these roles mainly exist in three distinct aspects: (a) by interpreting the satellite image, we can easily locate the sources of pollution and corresponding mines; (b) combining the quantitative techniques of remote sensing with fieldwork, we can accurately analysis and evaluate the environmental status of mining region; (c) rapid mapping about related environmental information and efficient data store and display platform. The good result illustrated in our paper will further strength our confidence in using the new remote sensing techniques to evaluate and monitor the environment related to human mining activities. * Yanhua Liu. School of Information Science & Technology, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, CHINA, [email protected].