Territorial Mining Scenarios for Sustainable Land-Planning: A Risk-Based Comparison on the Example of Gold Mining in French Guiana

Abstract

Mining can be the source and target of opportunities and threats of different natures exceeding the mine site perimeter, affecting the socio-ecological system and leading to social conflicts and entrepreneurial risks for mining companies. Hence, a mining project is a matter of land planning rather than a simple industrial object. Nevertheless, current mandatory risk and impact assessment methods are often performed on one project at a time, neglecting the coexistence of different mining activities and the socio-ecological vulnerability of the territory where mining takes place. This paper proposes an original risk-based approach to develop and compare different territorial mining scenarios (TMSs) to support land-planning strategies in mining territories, tested on the French Guiana gold mining sector. Five TMSs combining different mine types (e.g., legal artisanal, medium, large-scale mining, illegal mining) were developed for the same total amount of gold production at the watershed level. For each TMS, both accidental and ordinary risk scenarios were assessed through a GIS-based approach considering watershed socio-ecological vulnerability. Risks were finally weighted according to different stakeholders’ perception, and the TMSs were compared based on their global risk scores. Despite the multiple challenges highlighted, this paper highlights the feasibility of a methodological framework to support mining planning at the territory level.

Geodiversity Assessment of French Guiana: Challenges and Implications for Sustainable Land Planning

“…Thus, this could be the case of entities related to greenstone belt volcanism, which is often associated to high sheer diversity and to numerous formations with a great variety of geotectonic settings, as suggested by Anhaeusser (2014). Furthermore, it is mainly in these units that gold mineralization occurs, particularly in mesothermal orogenic deposits near sills and shear zones, related to ancient tectonic events (Voicu et al 2001;Milesi et al 2003;Théveniaut et al 2011;Scammacca 2020). For such reasons, the mineral diversity sub-index presents non-null and moderately high values in these areas, contributing to higher levels of geodiversity.…”

“…Indeed, georesources of French Guiana are the target of extraction (almost exclusively gold), and prospecting activities, such as for coltan (Gourcerol et al 2019), but also of increasing conservation interest because of their geoheritage, paleontological and archeological potentials and their links with biodiversity habitat support. Furthermore, urban sprawl, agriculture and industrialization are increasing, highlighting the need of sustainable development and land-planning strategies involving multiple human activities and drivers such as forestry, industry, mining, agriculture, tourism and urbanization (Scammacca 2020). For such reasons, French Guiana is a major challenge for socio-ecological management, conservation and sustainable landplanning (Aubertin and Pons 2017).…”

Mining Heritage Reuse Risks: A Systematic Review

“…In such scenarios, assessing a single risk can be insufficient when considering multiple hazards. A possible solution, the risk-based comparison approach, was put forward in analyzing the risk coexistence of different mining activities on the territory where mining took place [60]. Furthermore, multi-hazard assessment, defined as an approach considering more than one hazard and their interrelationships, including simultaneous or cumulative occurrences and interactions, offers another comprehensive solution [61].…”

From Geodiversity to Geofunctionality: Quantifying Geodiversity-Based Ecosystem Services for Landscape Planning in French Guiana

“…metamorphic, magmatic, sedimentary and volcanic rocks). Of particular interest, two greenstone belts, mainly composed of meta-volcanic lithology with greenschist to amphibolite facies metamorphism and of poorly known meta-volcano-sedimentary rocks (Fig 2a), host most of gold primary and placer deposits, targeted by legal and illegal mining (Scammacca et al 2022b). Water resources are distributed among groundwater bodies (84,000 km² in confined aquifers) and a dense and tufted network of surface waters (20,000 km of length) spread across the territory (DEAL, 2013).…”