Decision Support Methods of Environmental Impact Assessment of a Mining Site Contamination - Research Proposal Example

Academic review: Decision support methods of environmental impact assessment of a mining site contamination Name Date Introduction Environmental contamination and pollution that arise from mining in Europe triggered the development of environmental legislations to protect the environment. Most pertinently, it is vital that the environmental legislation include an environmental assessment that should be incorporated into the mining industry to act as a management method to prevent earth degradation (Jordan & Abdaal 2013). It is evident that the effects of pollution have led to climate changes in the world today. As such, the incorporation of appropriate measures will go a long way in solving the problem of pollution. The bodies in charge of environmental issues should pass laws and regulations that will govern and restrict pollution. The article indicates that there are unique features associated with mining that includes pollution from mineral deposits, industrial pollution, and earth and water contamination. Other environmental impacts attributed to mining include secondary contamination in the mining areas, soil erosion, air pollution, and the inability of land reclamation after mining procedures. Mining presents specific problems affecting the environment. Therefore, it requires special tools that will address the diversity of the mining problems and its related contamination (Jordan & Abdaal 2013). As such, the objective of this academic review is to outline the different decision support method developed in the literature, which can be used to mitigate mining contamination. Discussion Most elements that the society consumes emanates from mineral extraction because mineral resources provide the essential raw material for economic development (Smith 2005). It is apparent that the population demand for mineral resources is the major force that exerts pressure on the environment through mineral extraction, waste production, and industrial emissions. The earth baseline conditions before the mining process such as natural background pollutions, and state of the ecosystem provide a reference points for the assessment of mining impacts (Jordan & Abdaal 2013). The impacts trigger societal response through an implementation of new regulation, monitoring and remediation, state policies and good human behavior that reduces environmental pressure (Ritsema 2010). However, it is notable that mining accrues several impacts to the environment such as contaminating the environment with toxic metals. Moreover, mining causes pollutions and contamination of agricultural lands as witnessed in Romania mining accidents that deposited red mud into a dam. Nevertheless, mineral extraction and processing cause huge metallic and metal compounds wastage to the environment. Mining exposes the metallic compounds allowing a chemical reaction to the atmospheric air that result in acid deposition in the air. Due to the great production of metallic compounds and their slow chemical reactions in the air, the mine working sites can release a large volume of toxic compounds into the air (Smith 2005). Thus, the remediation and reclamation of mining and abandoned mining sites should consider long-term solutions and technologies that can eradicate the mining impact on the environment. Moreover, the surface water and soil that is present in the mining site often act as a hub that receives metallic compounds and harmful elements from the mines (Jordan & Abdaal 2013). As such, the contaminate sites act as secondary sites for pollution, degradation, and eventual depletion. The background contamination prevalent in mining areas complicates the process of an environmental assessment, as it requires that the assessment prescribe a wide inventory that addresses all the problems. As such, the EU mine waste directive proposed a measure that prescribed an inventory that will incorporate risk assessment procedures on closed and abandoned waste facilities (Jordan & Abdaal 2013). The risk assessments required remedial actions. The actions allowed for the implementation of geological, hydro geological and climatologically measures to mitigate the mining impacts to the environment. According to Wathern (2012), the Driving Force, Pressure, State, Impact, and Response environmental reporting framework provides a great decision support methods that can help mitigate contamination of the mining areas (Wathern 2012). In this regard, the decision support helps decision makers to develop appropriate solutions and alternative methods that can reduce the impacts caused by mining. Therefore, the decision support provides the following techniques on reducing mining contamination: information analysis, simulation, visualization, preference modeling, multiple-criteria modeling, expert system, and interactive techniques (Wathern 2012). Some scientists conducted a survey on decision-analysis application using environmental examples to analyze how visualization techniques and data mining helped in planning and incorporating decision support methods in management. The scientists established that mining contamination is a complex problem and requires the incorporation of a holistic approach to addressing the whole problem (Wathern 2012). Therefore, to address the problem, there should be direct environmental decision tools that should address the problem in its general complexity. Nevertheless, the support methods should implement particular sampling tools that allow for sample analysis, prediction, modeling, treatment, reclamation, and remediation technologies. Indeed, the method provided establish an integrated approach that provides a holistic framework for creating a harmonized environmental assessment tools (Wathern 2012).Many researchers establish that environmental impact assessment should include environmental planning, environmental accounting, environmental auditing, environmental reporting and life cycle assessment (Ritsema 2010). These methods provide the integral scientific method that provides an extensive decision support to solve the complex mining problem. The paper only addresses the decision support system that meets the holistic criteria, and they are landscape ecology, industrial ecology, landscape geochemistry, environmental risk assessment, environmental impact assessment, geo-environment model, material flow assessment, environmental management systems, lifecycle assessment, and technological assessments among others. Some other specific decision support system and evaluation schemes that can be utilized include benefit-cost analysis and multi-criteria analysis. The two methods should be used for gathering data and evaluating the control and support decisions in the industry (Smith 2005). As such, they cannot be used in providing the environmental assessment of mining sites contamination. Other methods not discussed in the paper that can provide meaningful insight to the decision support tools include global element cycle and landscape geochemistry in measuring mineral deposits on the earth surface. One should note that no particular method can address the mining problem on its own, and it should be incorporated by other methods to address the problem in its holistic form (Ritsema 2010). For instance, the methods that rely on ecology such as landscape ecology put more emphasis on studying the natural systems and assess the impacts of mining on the natural system. Therefore, these methods will propose ways and alternatives that mining should incorporate to minimize its detrimental effect on mother earth. On the contrary, the assessments methods such as environmental impact assessment and risk assessment provide a broad study of an effective decision-making process on the human socio-economic systems and environmental protections (Jordan & Abdaal 2013). These methods should work hand in hand to bridge the gap between natural science and socioeconomic activities and provide support decisions that will effectively manage the environment. From the previously stated facts, I concur with Ritsema’s remarks. For instance, I agree with the notion that the integrated use of natural science techniques and environmental assessments will be the most efficient method. It is because it could provide a support effective decision for mining implications on the environment. In fact, among the socio-economic activities; the life cycle assessment process provides the most holistic and broadest framework that can bring together all proponents of EIA and RA in forming an effective decision analysis. However, to select an effective decision support tool will entirely depend on a person choice and the regulatory framework of their country (Ritsema 2010). Thus, it is vital that an individual should ensure that all socio-economic conditions and environmental framework are all the same because a change of a regulatory framework can result in great environmental implications and contamination risks. For example, when a legal owner no longer possesses a mining site, the abandoned site from a regulatory point of view accrues the most hazardous environmental damages to the soil and water surface. As such, in the case of abandoned sites, there will be no point in implementing the lifecycle assessment or EIA to make decisions on site reclamation or remediation (Jordan & Abdaal 2013). Conclusion The article clearly identifies and gives numerous examples of the application procedures for the decision support tools to the mining tragedy on the environment. It clearly outlines the research programs that made the support tools apply to eradicate environmental contamination and mitigate mining impacts in the environment (Jordan & Abdaal 2013). However, it is notable that the article did not develop a set of tools that would address the specific problems that face the mining industry. This element is an important tool for establishing an environmental assessment procedure for mitigating mining implications to the environment. Most significantly, it is vital that mining environmental assessment should consider its whole industry in terms of its extraction process, material cycle flow, project life cycles and product life cycles. When an assessment recognizes all the spatial aspect of mining, it reduces and mitigates the mining implication to the environment (Ritsema 2010). Lastly, the article covers important factors that will enable a researcher, practitioners, and students to obtain a deep insight on the broad spectrum of the support methods that can provide an effective environmental assessment to be used on contaminated mining sites. Bibliography Jordan, G., & Abdaal, A. (2013). Decision support methods for the environmental assessment of contamination at mining sites. Environmental monitoring and assessment, 185(9), 7809-7832. Ritsema, L. (2010). 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