Mapping Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) and Acid Sulfate Soils Using Sentinel-2 Data

Inadequate characterization of AMD-generating mine waste is a major obstacle to remediation of post-mining sites, on the other hand a complete inventory and assessment of their environmental impacts are far from complete. This lack of update records calls for new fast and time and cost efficient monitoring techniques. Imaging spectroscopy represents an alternative to conventional methods (chemical analyses-based assessment tools) and efficient way to characterize mines and assess the AMD discharge. In this study, a new index for Sentinel-2 data (S-2) is introduced (D
_S-2(AMD)
) allowing mapping AMD and sufficient differentiation between jarosite minerals and other oxy-hydroxides. It is also demonstrated that S-2 data has a potential to map seasonal variations of AMD.