Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Sites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Are Not Associated with Nighttime Light Emissions

Kyba, Christopher; Giuliani, Gregory; Franziskakis, Florian; Tockner, Klement; Lacroix, Pierre Marcel Anselme

doi:10.3390/j2020013

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Title		Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Sites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Are Not Associated with Nighttime Light Emissions
Authors		Kyba, Christopher Giuliani, Gregory Franziskakis, Florian Tockner, Klement Lacroix, Pierre Marcel Anselme
Published in		J. 2019, vol. 2, p. 152-161
Abstract		Maintaining records of artisanal and small-scale mining sites in developing countries requires considerable effort, so it would be beneficial if Earth observation data from space could assist in the identifying and monitoring of such sites. Artificial light emissions are common at industrial-scale mining sites and have been associated with small-scale illegal mining in some contexts. Here, we examine whether known artisanal and small-scale mining sites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are associated with observations of night light emissions by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite Day/Night Band (DNB). Light emissions from the mining sites were not observed: the radiance observed from the sites was near zero and nearly identical to that observed for a set of randomly-chosen locations in the same region. While it is the case that DNB night lights' products provide useful data in other resource extraction contexts, they do not appear to be useful for identifying artisanal mining sites in the DRC.
Keywords		Artisanal mining — Democratic Republic of the Congo — Night lights — Remote sensing — VIIRS DNB
Identifiers		DOI: 10.3390/j2020013
Full text		Article (Published version) (1.1 MB) - Free access
Structures		Centres et instituts / Institut des sciences de l'environnement
Research groups		Envirospace Lab Global Resource Information Database (GRID) ISE Pôle Informatique environnementale TIGERS
Citation (ISO format)		KYBA, Christopher et al. Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Sites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Are Not Associated with Nighttime Light Emissions. In: J, 2019, vol. 2, p. 152-161. doi: 10.3390/j2020013 https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:116573