Environmental Impact of Mining in the Banat Mountains

Abstract

The Banat is a geographical and historical space that is currently divided among three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania, the western in northeastern Serbia and a small northern part lies within southeastern Hungary. The Banat Mountains consist of a number of mountain ranges in Romania, considered part of the Western Romanian Carpathians mountain range, which include: the Semenic Mountains, the Almăj and Locva Mountains, the Anina Mountains, and the Areniș and Dognecei Mountains and the Poiana Ruscă Mountains (Geografia României, vol. I, 1983). The Banat Mountains inherited severe environmental problems from more decades of communist rule, as their industries were heedless of environmental impacts. As result, many environmental „hot spot” zones were created, having extreme pollution loads, environmental degradation and related human health risks. The environmental impact of mining includes erosion of relief, formation of shinkholes, loss of biodiversity, contamination of soil, goundwater, and surface water by chemicals from mining processes in particular by decommissioned enterprises. The selection of the parameters analysed in this paper aimed at identifying the areas where soil, water and air pollution pose a medium to high risk The alert signal is more obvious and it is due to the fact that projects focusing on reopening/continuing the activity of some non-ferrous ore mines have been launched lately, implying the risk that these relaunches might be done without considering the rules to be observed in view of sustainable development.

Keywords

• mining
• radioactive environment pollution
• critical area