Young mining engineer inspecting a copper processing plant on a Canadian-owned mine in northern Zambia.Credit: Blaize Pascall / Alamy Stock Photo
Emissions from mining operations in Africa’s Copper Belt can be measured from space, new research has shown. The study published in Geophysical Research Letters, showed, for the first time, that satellite monitoring could provide valuable data on the impact of mining activities on air quality in nearby towns and villages.
The researchers used satellite measurements of atmospheric composition from TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), which onboard the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite (S-5P), to identify local spikes in nitrogen dioxide. By combining these satellite measurements with local wind patterns, the researchers were able to quantify the amount of nitrogen oxides emitted per time unit in several copper belt sites: four mines, and two cities with high pollution industrial activities.
Zambia's Copperbelt districtsCredit: MellonDor/ CC BY-SA 4.0
Africa's Copper Belt is a mining region located between Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia, and it’s the world's largest cobalt producer, which holds almost half of the world reserves. Over the years, the region recorded exponential increase (about 600% between 1990 and 2021) in cobalt production, due to growing global demand for smartphones, electric car batteries, laptops, amongst other devices that rely on lithium-ion batteries, which contain cobalt. The production leads to increased burning of diesel fuel, which produces nitrogen oxides.
