Mining gives us useful metals and minerals, which are used across our society in industrial and consumer products. However, it can also create major environmental impacts during the extraction process as well as long-term effects from its waste materials.
In this project, researchers are developing drone and satellite-based methods for rapid mapping, analysis and visualization of data from active and inactive mining sites.
- We want to make the extraction and site management process more efficient and environmentally sustainable, says Simon Buckley, principal researcher at NORCE, and scientific coordinator for the project.
The EU project m4mining is coordinated by NORCE, and partners are Norsk Elektro Optikk AS, Helmholtz Zentrum Potsdam Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum GFZ, Luleå Tekniska Universitet, Prediktera AB, Geological Survey Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment of Cyprus, University of Patras, The University of Queensland, and ReSe Applications LLC.
Real-time monitoring
- We already have some of the main technology building blocks required, and a really strong consortium who has worked on hardware, software and sustainable mining research for many years. Now we will develop the technology further to achieve real-time monitoring. There are still several technical and scientific challenges to be solved - the hardware and software, new algorithms, and making it safe, fast, and robust enough to work in challenging operational environments. No available solution is currently delivering real-time results, so m4mining aims to provide a step-change for future commercial solutions and best practice, says Buckley.