A Methodological Approach Towards a Global EnvironmentalImpact Assessment of Acid Mine Drainage Using Copper MiningProcesses as an Example

摘要

Within the context of acid mine drainage (AMD) associated with miningrnactivities worldwide there has been a tremendous research effort torndetermine the extent of AMD and assess the influencing factorsrncontrolling this process. However, the majority of the current approachesrnfocus on local and regional scale case studies and do not provide a globalrnscale picture of AMD potentials. This study attempts to develop arnmethod aiming at a global environmental impact assessment related tornAMD. To confine the complex topic this study concentrates on acidicrnemissions from heaps in consequence of copper mining processes. Inrnorder to pursue this approach two factors are of significant advantage: arncomprehensive environmental data base of more then 600 copper sitesrnworldwide and a method which has been developed and proven to bernsuccessful in assessing environmental impacts related to land use.rnCurrent and future research efforts focus on using this backgroundrnknowledge to enable both a comparison between sites and arncategorisation of sites according to emission estimates.