Environmental Evaluation of Tash bauxite mine in Semnan Province, Northern Iran

Mining and mineral resources are the pillars of development in any country. Mining development must be performed based on the pillars of sustainable development so that there would be no harm done to water, soil, air, plants, wild life and social life of local communities whilst exploiting valuable minerals and economic development. Lack of attention towards the pillars of sustainable development can turn into serious harms to environment and local communities social life during the long run. There would probably be needed to spend multiple times more than the added value earned by the mineral production in order to recompense the environmental and social damages caused by unauthorized mining. Therefore, from the late 2001 the beginning of mining activities in the bauxite mine of the village of Tash has caused challenges for the environment, natural resources and social issues. Some of the most important of which are the complete pollution of surface and ground waters, loss of water reserves in the area, soil erosion, susceptibility of the area to dust, loss of vegetation and rangelands, the endangerment of wildlife and flooding due to inappropriate tailings storage. This paper refers to the causes of these pollutions and how to stop further damages of the process.

کلیدواژه ها:

Environment ، Bauxite ، Tash Mine ، Semnan ، Shahroud