Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) and Acid Sulphate Soil monitoring using mineral and image spectroscopy: hyperspectral and multispectral approaches

Mining generates a number of significant environmental impacts, such as increased acidity of the soil/water environment, called mineral Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) being produced when sulphide-bearing material is exposed to oxygen and water.  Similar problem represent acid sulphate soils which are naturally occurring soils containing iron sulphide minerals (predominantly pyrite) or their oxidation products. Once these soils are drained, excavated or exposed to air by a lowering of the water table, the sulphides react with oxygen to form sulfuric acid. For both AMD and acid sulphate soils, there is a lack of historical and update records and, consequently, there is a need for new monitoring techniques allowing systematic analysis. A systematic study on how to map mineral patterns that characterize these acid environments using proximal remote sensing and imaging spectroscopy is presented. Furthermore, the upscaling to the spectral and spatial resolution of the satellite data such as WorldView2/3 and Sentinel-2 is discussed as well as an issue of transferability of the developed methods between the test sites which are characterized by different geographical conditions and environments.