“Independent research is essential to decipher the extent of risks posed by mining and its impacts on the environment and communities all over the globe, as well as to help identify major challenges and build public trust,” Maus said in a media statement.
The reasons for such data scarcity, which the researchers say has meant that about half of the world’s mining impacts remain undocumented, range from limited corporate reporting to disused, informal, or illegal sites.
Maus and Werner, thus, propose four steps to address this challenge. This includes acknowledging and addressing the underestimation of mining impacts and risks worldwide; improving data gathering and sharing practices among scientists; enhancing corporate transparency in the mining sector; and utilizing advanced techniques like remote sensing and artificial intelligence to fill data gaps.
“The urgency and scale of this problem cannot be overstated. With the
