Abstract
Mitigating the Environmental Impacts of Mineral Exploration Activities with GIS
Track: Mining and Geosciences
Authors: Gerald Heston
Mineral exploration companies in Nevada do not have all the planning tools necessary to fully address environmental concerns when planning and building exploration roads and drill sites for small projects. Exploration roads have numerous environmental impacts such as habitat fragmentation, impacts to water quality, and changes in wildlife behavior. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) regulations are meant to prevent undue degradation to the environment through Best Management Practice mitigation measures. Although the company proposes new roads to reach mineralized targets and is required to adhere to BLM guidelines, the BLM has more information than the company. The proposed solution is a GIS-based planning tool for companies to plan roads with. The tool integrates optimal routing with public-domain geographic data sets to identify the least-cost route from an existing access point to the proposed sites.