TITLE:
Water Pollution from Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Operations: Setting the Stage for a Novel Remediation Technology
AUTHORS:
Akuba Bezeba Yalley, Roland Haseneder, Bright Oppong Afum
KEYWORDS:
Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining, Water Pollution, Remediation Technologies, Sustainability, 3-Pond Purification System
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.13 No.12,
December
5,
2025
ABSTRACT: Water pollution resulting from Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) operations has been a major challenge for many governments and stakeholders over the years. The effluents from ASM operations are reported in multitudinous studies to be discharged into water bodies such as rivers, lakes, streams, lagoons leading to the heavy metals concentrations and high physio-chemical properties of such water bodies beyond acceptable limits. These pollutants are known to be the causes of the Minamata disease, cancer, brain disorders and damages and could even lead to deaths if bioconcentrations are high in the human body. Even-though various remediation techniques such as physical and chemical precipitation, ion-exchange, reverse osmosis, membrane filtration, electrochemical treatment, solvent extraction, and adsorption, have emerged, the huge nature of the polluted natural water bodies coupled with the continuous discharge of ASM effluents makes the application of such technologies economically unsustainable. This study establishes the different dimensions of water pollution spanning from the 2 categories of ASM operations and the need for future remediation technologies to thrive on these 2 dimensions of water pollution for sustainable implementation. Methods used include total analysis of water from 2 legal ASM site and 1 central processing plant in Ghana. In addition, there was a review of 21 studies published between 2014 to 2024 to ascertain the nature of illegal ASM water pollution, the pollutant levels and the success of any remediation technique implemented for cleaning the water. Results from the study indicated that the legal ASM operations employed a management system which is mainly based on “contained and recirculated” technique and the 3-pond purification method to manage effluents. However, the illegal ASM operations discharge their effluents directly into natural fresh water bodies resulting in heavy metals concentrations and high physio-chemical properties of the natural water bodies beyond the WHO standards for fresh natural water. Moreover, none of the studies could report on the successful implementation of any remediation technology on the polluted water bodies. This study therefore recommends that future remediation technologies should consider the different dimensions of the water pollution from the 2 categories of operations for sustainable implementation.