In order to extract coal (lignite), mining activities destroy large surfaces which affect soil fertility and cause losses of agricultural and forestry lands. Also, important surfaces are affected by quarries and sand exploitation which deepen the river beds and decrease the level of phreatic water.
The degradation caused by mining activities could be approached through different ways:
- Institutional strengthening and Educational training: The aim is to provide ministries and government agencies with technical assistance in the preparation, formulation, and modernization of national policies regarding environmental management for the mining sector, by analysis of the legislative and regulatory framework, preparation of technical documents and guides of good practices, implementation of educational training programs.
- Environmental impact assessments: The aim of this subject is to investigate, at various local and regional scales, all the impacts of mining projects on the physical and human environment., This will be based on a study of the national legislative and regulatory framework, by characterization of the natural environment, description of the project, investigation and measurement on the project’s impacts and proposals for mitigation measures.
- Site assessment and risk assessment: The purpose of a site assessment is to define the status of the environment and the issues, in order to identify a management policy appropriate to the site and to the surrounding environment. In other words, it involves the characterization and assessment of the scope of the pollution and its potential consequences. Risk assessments generally follow a site assessment. Their principal aim, based on a quantification of the risks, is to orient the actions to be taken concerning the environmental management of a site, depending on the plans for its future.
- Clean technologies: To introduce non-polluting processes and innovative pollution-control techniques for ore-processing and metallurgical plants, so that they improve their environmental performance: recycling, beneficiation and reduction at source of solid wastes and by¬-products, reduction of emissions (restriction of CO2 emissions), minimization of water consumption (recycling of process water), effluent treatment, minimizations of energy consumption.
The clean technologies recommended for the mining industry are based mainly on the following innovative approaches:
- Biotechnologies applied to extractive metallurgy,
- Technologies applied to the treatment of pollution,
- Environmental Technology Assessment (ETA),
- Optimization of the performance of mining and metallurgical facilities.
