Knowledge gaps and opportunities for earth observation tools in mine-rehabilitation at the property scale


Project Leader: Ass. Prof. Peter Erskine, University of Queensland

Participants: University of Queensland, Frontier SI

Australian industries and land managers are required to restore and
rehabilitate land that they have disturbed. However, these industries and
government regulators lack Earth Observation (EO) tools to effectively
characterise progressive rehabilitation of these disturbance footprints.

This project aims to engage the mining industry and land management
agencies to develop a clear understanding of EO tools needed to
improve government monitoring, and industry management approaches
to mine rehabilitation and restoration at the property scale (including
stochastic event monitoring). We know from recent discussions with
multiple mining companies (e.g. BHP, Anglo, and Rio Tinto) that there is
a compelling argument to link remotely sensed observations with
rehabilitation success criteria.

This project includes a needs analysis based on industry and government
engagement; a literature review on EO for rehabilitation monitoring and
tool development; and the development of a roadmap that highlights
current capabilities and recommendations for future research.