Monitoring river turbidity after a mine tailing dam failure using an empirical model derived from Sentinel-2 imagery

Monitoring river turbidity after a mine tailing dam failure using an empirical model derived from Sentinel-2 imagery

Sudden failure of a mine tailing dam occurred in the municipality of Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil, on January 25, 2019. Approximately 12 million cubic meters of mine tailings discharged into the Paraopeba River, producing strong environmental and societal impacts, mainly due to a massive increas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências Vol. 95; no. 1; p. e20220177
Main Authors: Crioni, Pedro L B, Teramoto, Elias H, Chang, Hung K
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Brazil Academia Brasileira de Ciências 01-01-2023
Subjects:
Brazil
Cities
Environmental Monitoring
Environmental Pollution
Mine tailings
MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES
Paraopeba river
Remote Sensing
Rivers
Sentinel-2
turbidity
Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis
water quality
Brazil
turbidity
Mine tailings
Remote Sensing
water quality
Sentinel-2
Paraopeba river
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Summary:Sudden failure of a mine tailing dam occurred in the municipality of Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil, on January 25, 2019. Approximately 12 million cubic meters of mine tailings discharged into the Paraopeba River, producing strong environmental and societal impacts, mainly due to a massive increase in turbidity (occasionally exceeding 50,000 Nephelometric Turbidity Units [NTU] (CPRM 2019). Remote sensing is a well-established tool for quantifying spatial patterns of turbidity. However, a few empirical models have been developed to map turbidity in rivers impacted by mine tailings. Thus, this study aimed to develop an empirical model capable of producing turbidity estimates based on images from the Sentinel-2 satellite, using the Paraopeba River as the study area. We found that river turbidity was most strongly correlated with the sensor's near-infrared band (NIR) (band 8). Thus, we built an empirical single-band model using an exponential function with an (R2 of 0.91) to characterize the spatial-temporal variation of turbidity based on satellite observations of NIR reflectance. Although the role of discharged tailings in the seasonal variation of turbidity is not well understood, the proposed model enabled the monitoring of turbidity variations in the Paraopeba River associated with seasonal resuspension or deposition of mine tailings. Our study shows the capability of single-band models to quantify seasonal variations in turbidity in rivers impacted by mine tailing pollution.
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ISSN:0001-3765
1678-2690
1678-2690
DOI:10.1590/0001-3765202320220177