Housing and population sprawl near tailings storage facilities in the Witwatersrand: 1952 to current

Recent research indicates that the finer milling used for modern gold extraction results in aeolian dust emanating from the TSFs which contributes to a higher proportion of inhalable particles in the source material. Air quality dispersion modelling, validated by ambient aerosol monitoring campaigns...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:South African Journal of Science 2015-11, Vol.111 (11/12), p.1-1
Main Authors: Kneen, Melanie A, Ojelede, Matthew E, Annegarn, Harold J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
aeolian dust
Aerial photography
Air pollution
Air quality
calculating exposed population
Dust
Dwellings
Environmental aspects
Eolian dust
Health aspects
Health risk assessment
Households
Housing
Housing developments
Manual workers
Migration
Mine tailings
Mining
Neighborhoods
Occupational health
Particulate matter
Population density
Population growth
Quartz
residential population
silicosis risk
Social aspects
Tailings (Metallurgy)
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Recent research indicates that the finer milling used for modern gold extraction results in aeolian dust emanating from the TSFs which contributes to a higher proportion of inhalable particles in the source material. Air quality dispersion modelling, validated by ambient aerosol monitoring campaigns, indicates that episodic dust events generate particulate matter and, specifically, quartz dust concentrations that are unhealthy at distances of up to 2 km downwind from TSFs. This contribution documented residential development from 1952 to 2011 (using historical aerial photographs, census data from 2001 and 2011 and ancillary information) to determine the population exposed to dust emanations from the TSFs. The resulting statistics were used to assess the populations exposed to dust hazard within the defined buffer zones. Overall, housing development has experienced a growth of approximately 700% since 1952 at a rate of 14% per year. Analysis of recent monitoring campaign data has confirmed multiple occurrences of quartz-rich inhalable dust in residential settings at levels that exceed occupational health standards, extrapolated to values for population exposure.
ISSN:0038-2353
1996-7489
DOI:10.17159/sajs.2015/20140186