Mineo Two Years Later Did the Project Impulse a New Era in Imaging Spectroscopy Applied to Mining Environments?

MINEO was a shared-cost action contracted in late 1999 with the Directorate General for Information Society Technology of the EU in the framework of the 5 European Research and Technological Development programme. MINEO was the first “hyperspectral project” carried out at European scale. It gathered seven Geological Surveys members of EuroGeoSurveys, two mining companies, the Joint Research Centre from the EU and the Danish Environmental Research Institute. MINEO aimed at developing tools and methods for assessing and monitoring the environmental impact of mining activities by means of combined Earth Observation and other relevant environmental data sets. MINEO was in particular designed to improve the hyperspectral imagery capabilities in mineral mapping in view of their use in the mapping of mining-related contaminated areas in European vegetated environments. The final objective was to develop the necessary tools for a further regular updating of environmental databases from future very high-resolution airborne and spaceborne missions. Two years after the completion of the project, and after a review of the major project outcomes and lessons learnt, the 4 Workshop on Imaging Spectroscopy is a good opportunity to make a statement on the contribution of MINEO developments and skills to mining-related environmental studies in Europe and elsewhere. The benefit of imaging spectroscopy to the regulatory framework, in particular European Directives, and ways to foster its appropriation by regulators is discussed. INTRODUCTION MINEO was initially designed to demonstrate the capabilities of imaging spectroscopy in identifying, characterising and mapping mining-related contamination or impacts in European densely vegetated environments, keeping in mind the requirements for future inventories and/or monitoring of these impacts at local, regional to national or European scale. MINEO voluntarily had chosen to diversify the mining and climatic environments for its test sites areas, in view of reflecting the European diversity and hence meet most of Europe’s climatic and mining environments and develop relevant tools and methods. Europe has a very wide diversity of environments, ranging from semi-arid in the south to boreal in the north, and even arctic when including Greenland. Europe mining activities also encompass a variety of extracted materials and mine types, each associated to specific relevant environmental concerns. 1 The association of the Geological Surveys of the European Union © EARSeL and Warsaw University, Warsaw 2005. Proceedings of 4th EARSeL Workshop on Imaging Spectroscopy. New quality in environmental studies. Zagajewski B., Sobczak M., Wrzesień M., (eds) The choice of the test sites reflected this diversity with followings: • Lead – Zinc mine in arctic environment (Mestersvig, Greenland), with underground and surface mining operations; • Open pit talc mine in boreal environment (Lanhaslampi, Finland) • Siderite mine in Alpine environment (Steirische Erzberg, Austria) • Underground coal mine in central Europe urbanised environment (Kirscheller Heide, Ruhr area, Germany) • Copper tin abandoned mining district in western European environment (Cornwall, UK) • Metal sulphide open pit mine of the Iberian Belt in southern Europe environment (Sao Domingos, Portugal) MINEO MAJOR OUTPUTS Very encouraging results have been obtained in the contribution of airborne imaging spectroscopy to the study and monitoring of mining environments, despite the very challenging but problematic abundance of vegetation characterising the European environments. Hyperspectral imagery has proven invaluable capabilities in mapping mining-related contamination and/or impacts. Promising results have been obtained in combining those resulting maps with other relevant information under GIS for modelling contamination, pollution risk, site rehabilitation or change detection. Scientific results In Greenland, imaging spectroscopy enabled the mapping of arctic vegetation contaminated by windblown tailings, and the downstream contamination of the drainage system by sphalerite bearing tailings. In Finland, imaging spectroscopy has been used to map dust and seepage contamination related to the talc mine over different boreal forest species. It has revealed that the influence of mining seems to have had more effect on reflectance, that is the health of mature spruce stands than that of mature pine and birch stands, in the vicinity of the mine. In Austria, different outcropping lithologies relevant to site re-vegetation potential have been mapped from hyperspectral imagery. In particular the mapping of iron-carbonate weathering intensity and its relationship with vegetation health in re-vegetation process has been established. This led to the development of a model that includes parameters to support mining re-vegetation techniques. This model gives a rapid overview of re-vegetation conditions and costs from information about the existing vegetation status (vegetation cover, vegetation types), the terrain (relief, elevation differences), soil and moisture conditions and the lithological situation. All this information, extracted from hyperspectral imagery processing is combined, ranked, and recalculated into a single layer to assess re-vegetation feasibility and probability of success Imaging spectroscopy data has been used over the German test site to estimate vegetation vitality and detect “vegetation stress” caused at surface by mining operations, in particular related to subsidence and water logging. Maps of the reaction of vegetation to these changes have been generated. These maps contain the development and distribution of vegetation stress and the alteration of biotope types in time series. Such maps are intended for use in environmental monitoring and landscape development management. In the UK, despite the very high moisture content of the soil and the densely vegetated environmental conditions, imaging spectroscopy made possible the mapping of the extension of different iron oxides at Wheal Jane tin mine and their contamination plume downstream to the river estuary. The most important contribution from hyperspectral data at Sao Domingos mine in Portugal has been to detect evidences of superficial Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) and related pollutants and map their extension. Mapping waste mining materials from soil and rock reflectance spectra collated in the field and mapping AMD minerals using the USGS mineral spectral library both show a good