This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: To better assess the spatial extent of mining facilities and their environmental impact, a research team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has developed a satellite-based remote sensing tool. SHABA (Seasonal Harmonic Anomaly Break Analysis) is an innovative satellite-based tool for analyzing spatial and temporal vegetation dynamics.
SHABA is unique in its ability to factor in seasonal fluctuations and trends to reliably detect and quantify changes in vegetation. The researchers hope that SHABA will help better assess the global environmental impact of mining. Metals are indispensable components of modern technologies, from smartphones and computers to electric cars, solar power plants and wind power plants.
Mining facilities built globally to extract them have significant environmental impacts. "In Europe, operators are obligated to ensure that their operations comply with the law. In other regions of the world, regulations may differ from ours," says Richard Gloaguen, head of the Department of Exploration at HZDR's Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF).
"Up to now, the land footprint of global mining has been inadequately quantified because we had no remote sensing tool to reliably monitor and quantify the environmental impact of the thousands of mines worldwide that underpin metal supply chains." That is precisely the kind of tool the research team led by Gloaguen presented in its latest study. The team developed SHABA, a satellite-based remote sensing tool that reliably detects changes in vegetation around mining sites. The research is published in the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
"A crucial feature is SHABA's ability to factor in typical seasonal changes in vegetation, such as leaf fall or blossoming periods, and also to compare data with previous years' trends," explains Vincent E. Nwazelibe, a scientist in Gloaguen's research group and the study's first author. "This allows SHABA to reliably detect changes in vegetation and pinpoint them precisely in space and time." In their study, the researchers used SHABA to scan vegetation surrounding six mining sites on different continents and in different climatic zones.
For each site, they analyzed satellite data on vegetation within a radius of up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) from 2000–2025, generating more than 100 satellite images per year for each site. "SHABA converts the vegetation data from satellite images into a clear wave diagram, which makes it easy to see and quantify any significant changes in vegetation at a specific location," explains Samuel Thiele, head of the Digital Data Processing group in the Exploration Department at HIF. The changes in vegetation that SHABA detected at the mining sites matched related events in the area at the given times: for example, vegetation loss caused by deforestation—to expand a mining site or build an access road—or gradual gains in vegetation following reclamation efforts.
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