Water quality of streams associated with artisanal gold mining; Suárez, Department of Cauca, Colombia

Abstract

Gold mining is one of the major problems of contamination of hydric resources in Colombia, this practice generates a high impact on water quality due to the accumulation of waste during its process. In this study water quality was evaluated in five natural stream beds corresponding to four streams with gold mining operations and one in the Cauca River, taking samples before the water inlet and after the outlet in each operation in the streams of Dios Te Dé, Tamboral, Piedra Imán, and Lorenzo affected by artisanal gold mining labor, which drain into the Salvajina Reservoir on the Cauca River in the municipality of Suárez Cauca, Colombia. Characterization of water bodies in the streams was carried out applying contamination indices of Colombia. The IDEAM protocol was used as guide to monitor the water currents. Samples were taken in 15 stations in the natural stream beds with operations and a sampling station on the Cauca River after the reservoir in these lotic ecosystems, during three periods; two from 2018 and one from 2019. The range of the contamination indices according to the environmental variables were considered. Results show that the contaminants associated with TSS, TUR, and Hg are high in the sampling stations in the output of the operations and the sampling stations of the streams with influence on the operations (T3, T4, I2, I3, D2, and D5). The water quality score according to the ICA IDEAM index varied between acceptable and regular in the different sampling stations. However the Hg concentration in sampling station C1 of the Cauca River is due to contributions from the operations in the amalgamation process. This requires strategic interventions by the communities, miners, operation owners, and control organisms as the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Cauca (CRC) and the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MADS) to minimize the negative impacts on the hydric resource and ecosystemic services associated with this resource.

Mercury (II) removal from aqueous solutions by iron nanoparticles synthesized from extract of Eucalyptus grandis

“…The wastewater samples from the selected stations have been previously analyzed and have shown Hg concentrations between 0.5 ug/L and 78.4 ug/L. Water currents where wastewater from mining activity arrives showed Hg concentrations between 0.094 ug/L and 1.0 ug/L [ 51 , 52 ].…”

Spatiotemporal Variability of Human Disturbance Impacts on Ecosystem Services in Mining Areas

“…The largest negative effects of mining are water purification and waste treatment, food, and disease regulation, relative to the other ESs (Figure 5). This is because the heavy metals and other mining wastes may degrade water quality through runoff and groundwater infiltration, causing a serious impact on inland water ecosystems [60][61][62]. The largest positive effects of restoration are nutrient cycling, soil formation, and climate regulation, which may be closely related to the restoration approach and technique.…”

Mercury Phytotoxicity and Tolerance in Three Wild Plants during Germination and Seedling Development

“…Ten to fifteen million people living in developing countries extract gold by hand [ 3 ]. However, like most extractive anthropogenic activities, they generally have a negative and large-scale impact on natural ecosystems due to air, soil, and water pollution [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. Although artisanal and SSGM provides economic opportunities for local people, it also causes negative impacts [ 7 ].…”