JultikaUniversity of Oulu repository

Abstract

In Finnish gold mining, passive treatment plays a significant role in filtration of mining-influenced water, which has important impacts on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems such as peatlands. The unstable and unpredictable natural factors and parameters such as temperature, sunlight, and rainfall during gold extraction, have made the analysis of the mine operation impact assessment (MOIA) very challenging, which calls for further research on the issue. This study uses remote sensing data from a reference area to test a new technique for MOIA. The approach makes use of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of images captured from Landsat satellites, before and during the operation of gold mine from the impacted peatlands and surrounding areas, followed by a correlation analysis and impact assessment. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the approach to predict the status of peatlands in the vicinity of the mining site. The analysis also showed the influence of the temperature and water treatment operation on the target peatlands, which can pave the way for the development of future MOIA tools for peatland drainage.