Estimating the “Forgone” ESVs for Small-Scale Gold Mining Using Historical Image Data

Abstract

Ghana's economic development relies largely on the mining industry, but the ecological cost is very high, particularly for the small-scale sector. To ascertain and give an account of the ecological pressures from the small-scale gold mining sector, we quantified and appraised the ecosystems (land cover types) degradation due to mining land use along portions of the renowned Pra River basin of Ghana. The study classified and analysed high-quality Landsat image data to monitor processes and changes in the river basin and adopted the Ecosystem Service Value (ESV) model to quantify the forgone value in monetary term. The results revealed that the initial ESV of 17.69 million US$ in 1986 increased to 18.40 million US$ in 2002 for the study landscape with the small-scale mining sector accounting for 8.4% of the trade-off costs. The expansion of forest areas and its higher value coefficient (VC) was, however, prevalent and this resulted in a net positive change during this period. However, in 2016, out of the total ESV of 14.63 million US$ obtained, the small-scale mining activities accounted for 36.8% of the trade-off costs. The substantial increase in trade-off costs with a subsequent decrease in ESV in the study landscape, following the intensification of small-scale gold mining, indicates that their activities have been degrading the watershed ecosystem and are, therefore, unsustainable. The study affirms the need for policymakers/government to review the laws, particularly on post-mining monitoring schemes to deter illegal miners and support the registered small-scale miners who are willing to implement land rehabilitation activities.

An Agent Based Model to Analyze the Bitcoin Mining Activity and a Comparison with the Gold Mining Industry

“…For example, there is an increasing concern for the health of miners and mining communities related to the mercury exposure, a toxic metal used in small-scale gold mining, and for the ecosystems' degradation due to mining land use [8,9]. Therefore, looking at the total mining costs, such as production costs, economic costs, environmental costs, and social costs, of these two assets or "safe havens", probably a wide spread of Bitcoin could allow us to better address the environmental aspects of sustainability and to have substantially higher savings than gold [8][9][10][11][12].…”

Predictive Modeling of Transport Infrastructure Space for Urban Growth Phenomena in Developing Countries’ Cities: A Case Study of Kano — Nigeria

“…Land use, on the other hand, involves human activities on the ground including farming, mining, commercial and industrial developments etc. Empirical studies by researchers have established many diverse fields of applications of LULC including geology and mining [5,6], hydrology and water catchments [7], agriculture [8], forestry and wildlife [9,10], urban evolution and regional geography [11], climate change and environmental ecology [12]. The traditional urban growth of Nigeria has always merged all infrastructure development together, including transport, without recourse to their differing critical needs and priorities.…”

Understanding land for high-quality development

“…Land-use change is both a cause and consequence of many biophysical and socioeconomic changes ( Van and Verburg, 2013). Human land-use activities have a great impact on biodiversity and the ecological environment by changing the ecosystem (Newbold et al, 2015;Asamoah et al, 2017;Tilman, 2017;Zheng et al, 2020). Research by Song et al (2018) showed that 60% of all land change is related to direct human activities and 40% to indirect drivers such as climate change.…”