Monitoring Water Quality in Open Basins of Non-operating Mines and Dumps

Within this research we explore time and seasonal behavior of multispectral satellite data with middle to high spatial resolution in order to estimate the content of metal particles in the water basins formed by non-operating copper mine and dumps. The aim is to test if regression model could be created between metal polluted water and the spectral response of the basins. As basis the spectral response of the embedded rocks of the copper mine and sands on the beaches of the dump site have been investigated. Similar to the well known vegetation indices such as NDVI several spectral indices are suggested, analyzed and the results are reported. The obtained results showed that the analyzed data and the implemented approach are proved to be useful in environmental monitoring process for the mining company responsible for the ecological state of the region. Also the successful implementation of method could be considered as basis for establishment of airborne monitoring of the ecological state of these areas.