Environment
Mohammad Hadi Salehzadeh; Hadi Farhadian; Saeed Yousefi; Mohammad Dehju
Abstract
This study aims to assess the environmental impacts of coal mining in the Eastern Alborz region, focusing on coal mines from 2013 to 2021, using remote sensing techniques. Landsat 8 satellite images were digitized based on key environmental indices, including NDVI, NDWI, NDSI, and NDBI, and subsequent ...
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This study aims to assess the environmental impacts of coal mining in the Eastern Alborz region, focusing on coal mines from 2013 to 2021, using remote sensing techniques. Landsat 8 satellite images were digitized based on key environmental indices, including NDVI, NDWI, NDSI, and NDBI, and subsequent statistical analyses and evaluations were conducted for the study areas. To distinguish the effects of mining from those of climate change, the results were compared with a reference area located within a natural resource block (baseline area), and the outcomes were thoroughly analyzed. The findings indicate that the combined impacts of mining and climate change have caused significant environmental degradation in the region. In particular, vegetation cover has experienced a sharp decline in recent years, while soil erosion has increased at a slower rate. Projections of mining impacts on vegetation and soil were made by calculating the average NDVI and NDSI indices for 2030 and 2050 in the studied areas. These projections suggest that NDVI is expected to decrease by 0.25 by 2030 and by 0.72 by 2050, indicating further vegetation loss in the coming decades. In contrast, analysis of the NDWI index reveals no clear trend in soil moisture changes over the study period. Given the climatic conditions of the selected areas, it is essential to monitor, manage, and mitigate environmental risk factors to prevent the expansion of drought into northern forests, highlighting the need for appropriate intervention measures.
Reza Ghaedrahmati; F Doulati Ardejani
Abstract
This paper utilises the modified Folchi method to assess the environmental impact of coal washing plant, Alborz Sharghi, North-east Iran. In this study, the number of factors designed in the method was slightly modified by focusing on the environmental impact of coal washing operations. In addition, ...
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This paper utilises the modified Folchi method to assess the environmental impact of coal washing plant, Alborz Sharghi, North-east Iran. In this study, the number of factors designed in the method was slightly modified by focusing on the environmental impact of coal washing operations. In addition, few other factors were designed and added to the previous factors. Then, twenty-one values of environmentally impacting factors from the study area and a case with standard amounts of effects were calculated. This method was conducted by forming an assessment matrix in which one dimension is the environmental components and the other one is impacting factors to estimate the environmental problems arising from the impacting factors of both cases. Comparison of the results of two cases shows that the amount of contamination produced by the plant, especially for components including air quality, agriculture and area landscape is significant.
