Environmental Impact Assessment of Quarrying Activity and Aggregate Production in Dire Dawa Administration Eastern Ethiopia
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Date
2021-09-14
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Quarries are open cast excavations from which fairly massive and deep deposits of hard or soft rocks are extracted, usually for the production of aggregates. the destructive nature of quarrying together with poor management of quarry sites has a serious environmental impact leading to a serious threat. This study focuses on the environmental and social impact of quarrying activity and aggregate production. Interviews & focused group discussion, observation, and reconnaissance surveys were utilized to evaluate the overall activity of quarry operation in the study area. Both close and open-ended type concentrated questionnaires were prepared to deal with the impact of quarry on workers and residents. A Focus group dissociation was made with the selected representatives to get information about the impact of the quarry activity. Maximum likelihood classification was applied to map land use/land cover and the transition was evaluated using spatiotemporal data between 2006 and 2021. SPOT-6 data with a 6 m resolution corresponds to 2006, Sentinel-2 data with a 10 m resolution between 2016 and 2021 were used to map the land use land cover. GPS data was used to check the LU/LC classified image into different classes. A field survey was also conducted to gather GPS points to map the change in land use and land cover and precisely validate accuracy assessment based on ground truth as well as to classify the rock mass of the quarry slope stability. The discontinuity of the rock mass was determined with Burton's compass at ten slope section sites. Land use land cover maps for the years considered, as well as the net change between 2006 and 2021 showed that quarrying sites have grown by around 692.68 ha, while Shrubland has shrunk by 2,238.68 ha during the same period. According to the social impact evaluation, numerous issues such as dust, noise, vibration, and flaying rock from quarry sites caused the problem on quarry employees and residents within the immediate vicinity of the quarry sites. The focused group discussion showed that there is a tremendous effect on the environment due to lack of follow-up. Except for site 5 and site 10 the all eight sites were classified as fair rocks whereas sites 5 and 10 were classified as poor rock. Also, according to the land stability review stability of the area ranges from completely unstable (sites 1,3,4, and 7) to partially stable (sites 2,6,8, and 9). According to the study, quarrying activity in the area will continue to cause significant environmental and community harm unless an adequate mitigation approach is followed by all responsible bodies.
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Keywords
Environmental Impact, Aggregate, LU/LC, Quarry, Slope Stability, Sentinel-2, SPOT 6