Open Pit Mining and Land Use Changes: An Example from Bogosu‐Prestea Area, South West Ghana

Abstract

The Bogoso-Prestea area has experienced mining for over a century and with advances in mineral processing and the promulgation of a new Mining and Mineral Law in 1986, surface mining became viable. High demand for gold will lead to increase in mining activities which will result in land use changes. Estimation of areas and analysis of land use flows methods were employed over a twenty year period (1986 -2006) to evaluate areas within the Golden Star Resources Bogoso Prestea Limited (GSRBPL) concession that have experienced land use change due to mining. The study revealed that mining in the area increased by 12.1 % in land coverage from 4.69 ha in 1986 to 530.84 ha in 2006. Agricultural land use reduced from 97.8% in 1986 to 82.7% in 2006. A significant ruralurban migration was acknowledged because settlements increased from 0.45 % in 1986 to 4.95 % in 2006. The study also revealed that land use due to mining stabilised between 1996 and 2006 due to good reclamation practices and reduced mine development.

Polluting Industries and Agricultural Productivity: Evidence from Mining in Ghana

“… These phenomena are documented in the Ghanaian case and are deemed to be a source of conflict and increased poverty in mining areas (Botchway, ; Duncan et al ., ). …”

“…Ghana has two main winds that come from opposite directions: the Harmattan, a dry and dusty wind, that blows from the Sahara, that is north-east, and another wind, warm and moist, coming from the Atlantic ocean, that is south-west. Hence, air pollutants may be dispersed in all directions around a mine.60 These phenomena are documented in the Ghanaian case and are deemed to be a source of conflict and increased poverty in mining areas(Botchway, 1998;Duncan et al, 2009).61 We also examine the relation between mining and agricultural input prices, see Appendix D in online Appendix. We find no evidence of an increase in agricultural wages or land prices in mining areas as compared to non-mining areas.© 2015 Royal Economic Society.…”

Review of GIS-Based Applications for Mining: Planning, Operation, and Environmental Management

“…Duncan et al [60] assessed the Golden Star Resources Bogoso Prestea Limited concession, where mining caused land use changes based on GIS-based spatial analysis. Area estimation and analysis of land use flow methods were performed to analyze a 20-year period , making it possible to identify how changes in land use in mining and agriculture over those two decades have emerged.…”

“…Examples include ore reserve detection and estimation using spatial 3D query tools [13], visualization of uncertainty in open-pit boundaries [17], and land-use selection after mine closure using multi-criteria decision analysis [70]. Furthermore, mining-induced potential conflicts [24,25], disasters [47,[53][54][55], and hazards [59][60][61][62][63] can be identified in advance using spatial analysis tools. Finally, all of the data and information are shared with multiple users to discuss optimal decisions through enterprise GIS technology [42].…”

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

“…Not only are researchers able to quantify the ecological degradation in space but also in time by remote sensing techniques. Regarding the impacts of technological loads in Ghana, many types of research have provided evidence that there are important ecosystem services loss due to farmland degradation and deforestation [10,[14][15][16]. Again, Snapir et al extensively mapped and discussed the spatial-temporal dynamics of "galamsey" activities.…”