The environmental implications of artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) practices have significantly grown, particularly on environment, socio, and livelihoods of the mining communities. The study aims to investigates the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of these practices. A survey research design including primary data as well as a random sample process were employed in the study. A total of 250 questionnaires were distributed to randomly selection respondents across the artisanal mining and processing areas. The statistical package for social sciences version 26.0 was used to analyze the data, which included frequency distribution tables, pie charts, bar graphs, percentages, regression, and correlation analyses. According to the data, 97% of gold miners use the mercury amalgamation process, 95.5% operate illegally, and 94.3% do not conduct environmental impact assessments for their mining activities. In terms of ASGM formalization, 68.1% say that poor governance has had an influence on the process, hampered sustainable practices and operations. According to the data, 91.4% of respondents strongly agreed that ASGM provides livelihoods for both women and children, while 73.1% strongly felt that ASGM is more profitable than other forms of livelihoods. The total health implications of hazardous chemical exposure linked with ASGM activities are that 75.5% are aware of major health consequences. Unfortunately, 83.2% of individuals surveyed said they continued to burn amalgam without protective equipment. The environmental implications of ASGM operations have significantly grown, particularly in terms of forest destruction and soil and water contamination (60.4%). The data from model fitting revealed that, at p=0.05, trends, practices, and governance structures were statistically significant with independent variables (X1, X2, X3, and X4) in predicting ASGM environmental sustainability. According to the data, Nagelkerke=0.198, or about 20% of the variance in mining operations in the ASGM sector, may be attributed to the four independent variables. According to the findings of the study, ASGM's current practices and governance structures have a major influence on the sector's environmental sustainability. The study suggests that ASGM formalization be accelerated and decentralized, and that governance mechanisms be operationalized in order to improve miners' skills and knowledge through education and socioeconomic development. Promoting miners' self-regulation is also essential for ensuring environmental sustainability.

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Artisanal and small-scale gold mining imparts on economic development more significantly in developing countries, but it is also responsible for serious environmental deterioration and human health concerns. Despite, the robust environmental legislations focused at mitigating the pernicious environmental and human health effects, little attention has been given to integration of environmental sustainability concepts into these regulations. This paper aims at addressing this gap by utilizing a systematic literature review methodology to analyze regulatory gaps and identify areas for improvement for integration of sustainable development. This study employed a systematic review designed to identify published scholarly studies on artisanal gold mining regulations for their effectiveness on environmental sustainability in the ASGM sector. A total of 159 papers were retrieved from the selected databases, 41 passed the inclusion criteria after a conscientious data analysis forming the evidence synthesis. After a rigorous data analysis, we find that the existing literature on ASGM regulations, largely do not systematically integrate critical issues of environmental sustainability. We found that, the regulations have concentrated on effects of chemicals such as mercury and cyanide mining technologies to minimize pollution and environmental assessments, while at the same time failing to address regulatory components of social issues, lack environmental incentives for the poor miners to improve production, lack of alternative technologies, lack of social securities, economic incentives and relevant trainings and awareness creation on health and safety which will continue to motivate unsustainable operations. It is thus strongly proposed that environmental sustainability concepts should be systematically and simultaneously integrated into ASGM regulations and policies in order to promote community livelihoods while protecting the environment from its rudimentary activities. The existing literature on ASGM regulations is unsystematic and inconsistent with most of it failing to fully address environmental sustainability challenges