Assessing the strategic applications of remote sensing for addressing illicit artisanal and small-scale gold mining activities

• Published in: GeoJournal 2024-04, Vol.89 (3), p.92, Article 92
• Main Authors: Moomen, Abdul-Wadood, Lacroix, Pierre, Benvenuti, Antonio, Planque, Marion, Ibrahim, Elsy, Giuliani, Gregory
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Application; Case studies; Charts; Cloud cover; Environmental Management; Fieldwork; Geography; Gold; Gold mines & mining; Human Geography; Literature reviews; Mining; Remote monitoring; Remote sensing; Social Sciences
• ISSN: 1572-9893; 0343-2521; 1572-9893
• DOI: 10.1007/s10708-024-11094-7

Global demand for gold is growing through the manufacture of jewellery and electronic products. The growing demand for gold is met through both large and small-scale mining. Thus, there is also an increasing number of informal Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) activities in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South/Latin America. This paper, therefore, assesses the use of Remote Sensing (RS) towards monitoring and addressing illicit ASGM activities across the globe. A systematic literature review was combined with fieldwork and case study analysis of data. Specific case studies have been conducted in Columbia, Mongolia, and Ghana to assess the influence of cloud cover over RS data and detection of illicit ASGM activities, respectively. Considering the levels of application of RS for monitoring and addressing illicit ASGM, it is found that South America records highest in holistic applications, then followed by Africa and Asia. For country-specific applications of Remote Sensing for monitoring ASGM activities in Southeast Asia, Indonesia leads the chart, in Latin America, Brazil and Peru dominate while Ghana and D.R. Congo lead the Chart in Africa. Thus, these countries host hotspots of illicit ASGM activities across the regions. From the results, it is observed that Columbia has more cloud cover persistence than Mongolia and Ghana, thereby, making it feasible for monitoring and detection in the latter countries than the former.