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Mining activities, expecially those operated in open air (open pit), present a deep impact on the sourrondings. Such an
impact, and the related problems, are directly related to the correct operation of the activities, and usually strongly
interact with the environment. Impact can be mainly related to the following issues: high volumes of handled material,
ii) generation of dust, noise and vibrations, water pollution, visual impact and, finally, mining area recovery at the end
of exploitation activities. All these aspects can be considered very important, and must be properly evaluated and
monitored. Environmental impact control is usually carried out during and after the end of the mining activities,
adopting methods related to the detection, collection, analysis of specific environmental indicators and with their further
comparison with reference thresholding values stated by official regulations. Aim of the study was to investigate, and
critically evaluate, the problems related to development of an integrated set of procedures based on the collection and
the analysis of remote sensed data in order to evaluate the effect of rehabilitation of land contaminated by extractive
industry activities. Starting from the results of these analyses, a monitoring and registration of the environmental impact
of such operations was performed by the application and the integration of modern information technologies, as the
previous mentioned Earth Observation (EO), with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The study was developed
with reference to different dismissed mine sites in India, Thailand and China. The results of the study have been utilized
as input for the construction of a knowledge based decision support system finalized to help in the identification of the
appropriate rehabilitation technologies for all those dismissed area previously interested by extractive industry activities.
The work was financially supported within the framework of the Project ASIA IT&C - CN/ASIA IT&C/006 (89870)
Extract-It "Application of Information Technologies for the Sustainable Management of Extractive Industry Activities"
of the European Union.
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