Assessment of accidental water pollution with mine waters in Romania during 2017-2023

Abstract

Against the background of an increasingly restricted mining activity at the national level, due to the high economic costs, the active and conservation mining objectives sporadically register environmental incidents, which affects mainly the aquatic environment. Thus, in the context of excess rainfall, internal erosion processes associated with dikes and structures related to tailings ponds, poor management of the galleries under conservation can lead to the triggering of accidental pollution with mine waters and wastewaters from tailing ponds of the natural hydrographic network. The analysis of these events was done both from the perspective of spatial and temporal distribution, with a focus on the nature of involved polluting substances and the transfer of pollution waves on the local and regional hydrographic network system. The paper used information from the database of the Romanian National Water Administration, obtained as a result of the post-event investigations carried out through the Water Basin Administrations and their associated laboratories for the period 2017-2023.

Keywords

• accidental water pollution events
• spatial distribution
• temporal analysis