Geography
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Since the early 2000s, the Madre de Dios Region of southern Peru has experienced rapid expansion of both licit and illicit mining activities, in the form of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). ASM typically takes place in remote, inaccessible locations and is therefore difficult to monitor in situ. This paper explores the utility of Landsat-5 imagery via decision tree classification to determine ASM locations in Madre de Dios. Spectral mixture analysis was used to unmix Landsat imagery, using WorldView and QuickBird l imagery to aid spectral endmember selection and validate AMS maps. The ASM maps had an overall area-weighted accuracy of 96% and indicated a large proportion of illicit ASM activity (̃65% of all ASM in the study area) occurring outside the permitted concessions. Holistic visual comparison of ASM output maps with reference imagery showed that these methods produce reasonable, realistic maps of mined area extent.
The available download offered here is the author manuscript accepted for publication. This version has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process.
Publication Title
Remote Sensing Letters
Publication Date
10-20-2014
Volume
5
Issue
10
First Page
882
Last Page
891
ISSN
2150-704X
DOI
10.1080/2150704X.2014.973080
Keywords
accuracy assessment, environmental monitoring, Landsat, mapping method, mining, QuickBird
Repository Citation
Elmes, Arthur; Ipanaqué, Josué Gabriel Yarlequé; Rogan, John; Cuba, Nicholas; and Bebbington, Anthony J., "Mapping licit and illicit mining activity in the Madre de Dios region of Peru" (2014). Geography. 461.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_geography/461
Copyright
“This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Remote Sensing Letters on October 20, 2014, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/2150704X.2014.973080.”