Illegal gold mining carried out using amalgamation techniques produce mercury waste which can then damage the environment and damage the health of residents. The negative impact due to the use of mercury is dead fish, contaminated river water, water quality below environmental standard quality and spreading in the food chain. This has caused environmental damage, one of which is in terms of land and water. This condition is the basis for conducting deeper research on environmental damage by mercury waste, especially in terms of soil and water. The sampling method used is the Geochemical Method and Geoelectric Method. Geoelectric samples were taken using the superstring R8 tool. Geochemical samples used were soil and water samples which were subsequently tested by the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS) and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) methods to see the mercury levels that had been scattered in the research location. The study aims to determine the distribution of mercury waste and its levels. This research includes sampling, sample testing, data processing and analysis, and making maps of the distribution of mercury waste through QGis software. From the study, it was found that the distance from the traditional gold mining processing location determines the concentration level (Hg). Analysis using AAS shows that there were 13 samples had mercury concentrations above the critical threshold. From the analysis, it is also known that AAS could not detect mercury levels in soil samples which is different from the results obtained using XRF.

The probabilistic kinematic analysis for rock slope has been conducted on one slope along USAID road in Aceh Province, Indonesia. This research aims to develop the modelled probability density function (PDF) and determine the probabilistic of planar failure occurrence (Pop). The geometry of discontinuity planes (dip and dip directions) and slope geometry (slope angle and slope face) were collected from our previous study. One slope with planar failure criteria was selected. The Monte Carlo simulations were performed in generating 100 new random values in 100 time iterations to produce modelled PDFs for the geometry of discontinuity plans based on statistical parameters of field observed data. The probabilistic of each experimental PDFs were computed to produce the probabilistic of planar failure occurrence. The result reveals that the distribution of dip and dip directions for experimental PDFs are considered Beta and Normal distributions. The statistical parameters produced in the model are almost likely similar to observed data. It means the model that was developed are reliable and conscientious. The rule of Φ < βj < βs and dip directions (αj) within ±20° to slope face (αs) are utilised as the boundaries to calculate the probabilistic of planar failure occurrence (Pop) which revealing 0.26.

The physical and chemical environmental impact in a mining area is inevitable, particularly for open pit mining areas. The impact could affect soil and water quality where mining activities, such as land clearing, blasting and hauling, occur. Thus, environmental monitoring in mining areas should be taken to measure the impact of mining activity for reclamation purposes. The objective of this research focuses on the measure of environmental impact on soil quality in terms of the nutrient content in an abandoned mine area at Jantang village, Lhoong, Aceh Besar. The research was conducted by collecting 15 soil samples, followed by laboratory analysis using atomic absorption spectrophotometry to investigate sampled 'soil's nutrients which are pH, Carbon (C-organic), Nitrogen (N-total), Phosphor (P-availability), and Ferro substance (Fe-concentration). In addition, to estimate the soil properties at locations outside the sampling area, a spatial interpolation method called inverse distance weight with an optimum power was used. The result shows that the soil is acidic, with low C-organic in the range of 0.02%–1.84%, N-total 0.02%–0.16%, and P-availability 0.55%–3.75%. In contrast, the Fe-concentration is very high, at 3000–3400 ppm.

Following the regulation of the Indonesian Government, every Mining company has an obligation to do reclamation for mining areas that had been exploited. One of the reclamation stages is re-vegetation to plant the exploited mine area with cover crops. Cover crop monitoring commonly is taken by direct assessment of plants growth. However, this approach is ineffective and also expensive which is proportional to the large reclamation area. The objective of this research is to apply remote sensing methods to monitor cover crop growth at Siltstone Quarry of PT Aroma Cipta Anugrahtama, in Lhoknga subdistrict, Aceh Besar. The monitoring was conducted using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery data by computing the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The analysis was done in a time series from the year 2019 to 2022 using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform. The result shows that the NDVI value is varied from 0 to 0,8 which is classified into no vegetation to high vegetation area. Based on spatial distribution of NDVI values, can be observed that the northern area has higher uniform NDVI value compared to the southern area which is more mixed. This indicates the southern part has been exploited earlier. Overall the re-vegetation successful rate for reclamation zone before 2019, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 are 96%, 99,5%, 70,6%, 36,6% and 6,2%.