scholarly journals Alleviating some Environmental Impacts resulting from Artisanal and Small-scaleMining Sector: A Critical Review

Author(s):  
R.V. Byizigiro ◽  
M. Biryabarema ◽  
G. Rwanyiziri

This paper highlights the importance of transforming Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM) sector into a more sustainable enterprise and shows  the reclamation of despoiled mined sites as an opportunity to return land to beneficial uses which do not compromise future development of the sites. It presents some of environmental impacts produced by ASM and the contribution of a geomorphological approach to alleviate them. The methodology consisted of the review supported by field survey in small-scale mining areas to summarize the most relevant scientific findings and the importance of stabilizing the land that will support sustainably reclamation structures. The impacts include haphazard excavations with no land reclamation plan, pits, trenches inadequately protected, siltation of open water bodies, soil and rock wastes, negative change of soil properties, and accelerated erosion of the mine sites. To transform the sector into a more responsible industry, ASM has to be placed within two integrated perspectives: (i) building the capacity of ASM sector, and (ii) promoting restoration approach by building a critical knowledge mass through collaboration of relevant stakeholders, with emphasis on multidisciplinary approach.The study opens a relevant new research field and emphasises on the collaboration of mining stakeholders including local communities to develop an integrated approach to address challenges that ASM industry is facing in developing countries. This review highlights the impacts of small-scale mining sector on land use potentials and it is essentialcontribution towards the sustainability of ASM industry and reclamation of despoiled mined lands. Key Words: small-scale mining sector, environmental impact, geomorphologic approach, sustainability

Author(s):  
David Marutschke ◽  
Ted Gournelos ◽  
Subhasis Ray

Customer experience management is a relatively new research field. Although past literature has studied certain aspects and elements of customer experience, major questions are still unanswered, including how to integrate touch-points across the customer journey and how to measure customer experience in a way that takes its multidimensional nature into consideration. This chapter attempts to provide a framework to study how customers perceive touch-points as a holistic experience and proposes an integrated approach to measuring the experience of challenges that result in what we call “friction.” The framework is based on the concept of “fluency” from the engineering and omni-channel literature and suggests survey items which can be used for future empirical studies. Insights from this research can be used by various types of organizations to better identify problems in the customer experience in regard to the process and dynamics of touch-points through time and across channels/platforms, thereby enhancing value for customers and businesses.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Loic Pengtao Li ◽  
Julia A. Fehrer ◽  
Roderick J. Brodie ◽  
Biljana Juric

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to diagnose the trajectory of influential conceptual articles in developing a research stream. The authors uncover the knowledge diffusion through influential conceptual articles and identify characteristics that make conceptual articles influential in their field.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on scientometrics, specifically an integrated approach combining quantitative citation counts with qualitative citation practices analysis that offers a comprehensive understanding of the nature and context of citations. The authors use the case of customer engagement – a prominent contemporary marketing and service research stream – to explore the trajectory of influential articles in shaping a new research stream.FindingsThis research shows that influential articles contribute to the reciprocal knowledge diffusion within and outside their home discipline. They provide anchor points for conceptual framing, conceptual refining and conceptual reconciliation – three application patterns of citations that are pivotal to navigate theory discovery and theory justification in a research field.Research limitations/implicationsThe study analyzes the early impact period of two influential customer engagement articles to understand the developments leading to the establishment of a new research stream. Future research drawing on automated citation and bibliometric methods may consider extended time periods.Originality/valueThis study traces the trajectory of influential articles in marketing and service research. The authors identify characteristics of influential conceptual articles, and recommend practices to develop a conceptual paper with the potential for an influential trajectory. It shows that while marketing and service research has a tradition of “borrowing” theories from other fields, seminal articles “lend” theories to other fields.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe de Lucia Lobo ◽  
Pedro Walfir M. Souza-Filho ◽  
Evlyn Márcia Leão de Moraes Novo ◽  
Felipe Menino Carlos ◽  
Claudio Clemente Faria Barbosa

Although mining plays an important role for the economy of the Amazon, little is known about its attributes such as area, type, scale, and current status as well as socio/environmental impacts. Therefore, we first propose a low time-consuming and high detection accuracy method for mapping the current mining areas within 13 regions of the Brazilian Amazon using Sentinel-2 images. Then, integrating the maps in a GIS (Geography Information System) environment, mining attributes for each region were further assessed with the aid of the DNPM (National Department for Mineral Production) database. Detection of the mining area was conducted in five main steps. (a) MSI (MultiSpectral Instrument)/Sentinel-2A (S2A) image selection; (b) definition of land-use classes and training samples; (c) supervised classification; (d) vector editing for quality control; and (e) validation with high-resolution RapidEye images (Kappa = 0.70). Mining areas derived from validated S2A classification totals 1084.7 km2 in the regions analyzed. Small-scale mining comprises up to 64% of total mining area detected comprises mostly gold (617.8 km2), followed by tin mining (73.0 km2). The remaining 36% is comprised by industrial mining such as iron (47.8), copper (55.5) and manganese (8.9 km2) in Carajás, bauxite in Trombetas (78.4) and Rio Capim (48.5 km2). Given recent events of mining impacts, the large extension of mining areas detected raises a concern regarding its socio-environmental impacts for the Amazonian ecosystems and for local communities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 156-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasirudeen Abdul Fatawu

Recent floods in Ghana are largely blamed on mining activities. Not only are lives lost through these floods, farms andproperties are destroyed as a result. Water resources are diverted, polluted and impounded upon by both large-scale minersand small-scale miners. Although these activities are largely blamed on behavioural attitudes that need to be changed, thereare legal dimensions that should be addressed as well. Coincidentally, a great proportion of the water resources of Ghana arewithin these mining areas thus the continual pollution of these surface water sources is a serious threat to the environmentand the development of the country as a whole. The environmental laws need to be oriented properly with adequate sanctionsto tackle the impacts mining has on water resources. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure needs to bestreamlined and undertaken by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and not the company itself.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (XXIII) ◽  
pp. 121-133
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Wojan

This article outlines the original research concept developed and applied by the Voronezh researchers, which brought both quantitative and qualitative results to the field of linguistic comparative research. Their monograph is devoted to the macrotypological unity of the lexical semantics of the languages in Europe. In addition, semantic stratification of Russian and Polish lexis has been analyzed. Their research concept is now known as the “lexical-semantic macrotypological school of Voronezh.” Representatives of this school have created a new research field in theoretical linguistics – a lexical-semantic language macrotypology as a branch of linguistic typology. The monograph has been widely discussed and reviewed in Russia.


Author(s):  
Almaz F. Abdulvaliev

This article presents the conceptual foundations for the formation of a new research field “Judicial Geography”, including the prerequisites for its creation, academic, and theoretical development, both in Russia and abroad. The purpose of the study is to study the possibility of applying geographical methods and means in criminal law, criminal procedure, and in judicial activity in general via the academic direction “Judicial Geography”. The author describes in detail the main elements of judicial geography and its role and significance for such legal sciences, as criminal law, criminal procedure, criminalistics, and criminology among others. The employed research methods allow showing the main vectors of the development of judicial geography, taking into account the previous achievements of Russian and worldwide academics. The author indicates the role and place of judicial geography in the system of legal sciences. This study suggests a concept of using scientific geographical methods in the study of various legal phenomena of a criminal and criminal-procedural nature when considering the idea of building judicial bodies and judicial instances, taking into account geographical and climatic factors. In this regard, the author advises to introduce the special course “Judicial Geography”, which would allow law students to study the specifics of the activities of the judiciary and preliminary investigation authorities from a geographical point of view, as well as to use various geographical methods, including the mapping method, in educational and practical activities. The author concludes that forensic geography may become a new milestone for subsequent scientific research in geography and jurisprudence.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Siqueira-Gay ◽  
Luis E. Sánchez

AbstractIncreased prices and political pressure are boosting illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon, threatening forests, indigenous people, and conservation of biodiversity in protected areas. The rate of illegal mining deforestation increased more than 90% from 2017 to 2020, reaching 101.7 km2 annually in 2020 compared to 52.9 km2 annually in 2017. In that period, illegal mining deforestation rate grew more than the rate of clearing within mining leases. While formal mining is required to comply with environmental regulations, most small-scale or artisanal mining and especially illegal mining areas are abandoned after reserves are exhausted, without proper rehabilitation. Deforestation due to illegal mining is likely to increase in the next years, calling for coordination between local and regional policies as well as for strengthening and expanding international mechanisms to increase traceability of mineral supply chains with certification schemes to help to curb illegal mining.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1932 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reza Kiani Mavi ◽  
Denise Gengatharen ◽  
Neda Kiani Mavi ◽  
Richard Hughes ◽  
Alistair Campbell ◽  
...  

This paper aims to identify the major research concepts studied in the literature of sustainability in construction projects. Two bibliometric analysis tools—(a) BibExcel and (b) Gephi, were used to analyze the bibliometrics indices of papers and visualize their interrelations as a network, respectively. Therefore, a research focus parallelship network (RFPN) analysis and keyword co-occurrence network (KCON) analysis were performed to uncover the primary research themes. The RFPN analysis clustered the studies into three major categories of evaluating sustainability, project management for sustainability, and drivers of sustainable construction. The KCON analysis revealed that while each paper had a different focus, the underlying concept of all clusters was sustainability, construction, and project management. We found that while ‘sustainability’ was the leading keyword in the first cluster, i.e., evaluating sustainability, it was the second top keyword with the eigenvector centrality of over 0.94 in the other two clusters. We also found that the concept of sustainability should be included in construction projects from the early stages of design and feasibility studies and must be monitored throughout the project life. This review showed that previous researchers used a variety of statistical and mathematical techniques such as structural equation modelling and fuzzy decision-making methods to study sustainability in construction projects. Using an integrated approach to identifying the research gaps in this area, this paper provides researchers with insights on how to frame new research to study sustainability in construction projects.


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