Assessing the impact of gold mining on the land use land cover change using GIS & Remote Sensing: case study in Yatela gold mine, Mali (1999-2015)
Date
2017
Authors
Munyai, Vuledzani Hector
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Abstract
The main purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of open pit mining on the Land Use Land Cover Change (LULCC) of the Yatela region in Mali.
The methodology used to assess the open pit mining operations were remote sensing vegetation indices (NDVI) and LULC maps at a four year interval from 1999 to 2015. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification was used to create the LULC maps. Assessment of the quality from SVM classification outputs were analyzed using the confusion matrix technique. Three satellites (Landsat 5, 7 and 8) were used to analyze the images that were extracted from scene path 202 row 050. The NDVI results were able to detect the development and expenditure of the open pit mine in the Yatela region from 1999 to 2015. The roads and open pit mine area were easily detected from the 1999 NDVI results. Over the years the vegetation cover varied in the Yatela region, good vegetation cover was present before mine operations (1999) and after the mine closure (2015).
The average overall accuracy for the five classified images was 84.31%. The change detection statistics showed that there were significant changes in each of the five classes over the 16 year period. Anthropogenic factors are assumed to be the major contributing factor to the Land Use Land Cover Change in the Yatela region. Nonetheless, this should not mean that climate factors can be neglected as contributing factors to LULCC in the region. Due to data limitation this research was unable to test any climatic influences.
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing) at the School of Geography, Archaeology & Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand. Johannesburg. 23 March 2017.
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Citation
Munyai, Vuledzani Hector (2017) Assessing the impact of gold mining on the land use land cover change using GIS & remote sensing : case study in Yatela gold mine, Mali (1999-2015), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, https://hdl.handle.net/10539/25140