Impact of coal mining activities on air environment in the Jharia coalfield region, India : A review

By /

IJEP 42(6): 752-757 : Vol. 42 Issue. 6 (June 2022)

Full Text

Pramod Kumar*

Delhi University, Department of Chemistry, Sri Aurobindo College, New Delhi – 110 017, India

Abstract

Coal is an important resource in India and it plays a significant role in the energy sector and industrial growth of the country. However, adversely, the coal mine fire, mining of coal and associated activities release particulate matter (PM), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), toxic gases and metals into air environment and impose many health issues on the local population. The mine fire and poor air quality have been a common hazards affecting the people of the Jharia coalfield (JCF) in district Dhanbad, Jharkhand. The present study reviews the status of air pollution and mine fire area in the Jharia coalfield, which can be useful to environmentalists and decision-makers for establishing the strategies to control the environmental issues in the affected areas.

Keywords

Coal mine fire, air quality status, Jharia coalfield, human health risk

References

  1. Ministry of mines, Govt. of India. 2018-19. Annual report. Available at : https://mines.gov.in/writereaddata /Upload File/English 637094270360 450099.pdf.
  2. Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. 2019. Energy statistics.
  3. Singh, G. 2008. Mitigating environmental and social impacts of coal mining in India. Mining Engineer’s J., 8-24.
  4. Swer, S. and O.P. Singh. 2004. Status of water quality in coal mining areas of meghalaya, India. Proceedings of National Seminar on Environmental engineering with special emphasis on mining environment, NSEEME-2004. IPHE, Bangladesh.
  5. Equeenuddin, S.M., et al. 2010. Hydrogeochemical characteristics of acid mine drainage and water pollution at Makum coalfield, India. J. Geochem. Explor., 105(3):75-82.
  6. Talukdar, B., et al. 2016. Evaluation of genetic toxicity caused by acid mine drainage of coal mines on fish fauna of Simsang river, Garohills, Meghalaya, India. Ecotoxicol. Env. Saf., 131:65-71.
  7. Dhar, B.B., S. Ratan and A. Jamal. 1986. Impact of opencast coal mining on water environment: A case study. J. Mines Metals Fuels. 34(12): 596-601.
  8. Tiwary, R.K. and B.B. Dhar. 1994. Environmental pollution from coal mining activities in Damodar river basin, India. Mine water Env., 13:1-10.
  9. Tiwary, R. K. 2001. Environmental impact of coal mining on water regime and its management. Water Air Soil Poll., 132 (1-2): 185-199.
  10. Singh, A.K., et al. 2012. Environmental geochemistry and quality assessmengt of mine water of Jharia coalfield, India. Env. Earth Sci., 65(1):49-65.
  11. Tiwari, A.K., et al. 2015. Evaluation of surface water quality by using GIS and a heavy metal pollution index (HPI) model in a coal mining area, India. Bull. Env. Contam. Toxicol., 95(3):304-310.
  12. Tiwari, A.K. and M. De Maio. 2018. Assessment of sulphate and iron contamination and seasonal variations in the water resources of Damodar valley coalfield, India: A case study. Bull. Env. Contam. Toxicol., 100(2):271-279.
  13. Singh, R., et al. 2017a. Assessment of potentially toxic trace elements contamination in groundwater resources of the coal mining area of the Korba coalfield, Central India. Env. Earth Sci., 76(16):566.
  14. Mahato, M.K., et al. 2017. Assessment of mine water quality using heavy metal pollution index in a coal mining area of Damodar river basin, India. Bull. Env. Contam. Toxicol., 99(1):54-61.
  15. Neogi, B., et al. 2018. Evaluation of metal contamination and risk assessment to human health in a coal mine region of India: A case study of the North Karanpura coalfield. Hum. Ecol. Risk Assess., 24(8):2011-2023.
  16. Das, S.K. and G.J. Chakrapani. 2011. Assessment of trace metal toxicity in soils of Raniganj coalfield, India. Env. Monit. Assess., 177(1-4):63-71.
  17. Reza, S.K., et al. 2015. Geostatistical and multivariate analysis of soil heavy metal contamination near coal mining area, northeastern India. Env. Earth Sci., 73(9):5425-5433.
  18. Pandey, B., M. Agrawal and S. Singh. 2016. Ecological risk assessment of soil contamination by trace elements around coal mining area. J. Soils Sediments. 16(1):159-168.
  19. Raj, D., A. Chowdhury and S.K. Maiti. 2017. Ecological risk assessment of mercury and other heavy metals in soils of coal mining area: A case study from the eastern part of a Jharia coalfied, India. Hum. Ecol. Risk Assess., 23(4):767-787.
  20. Das, A., et al. 2018. Geochemical sources of metal contamination in a coal mining area in Chhattisgarh, India using lead isotopic rations. Chemosphere. 197:152-164.
  21. Prakash, A. and R. P. Gupta. 1998. Landuse mapping and change detection in a coal mining area-A case study in the Jharia coalfield, India. Int. J. Remote sensing. 19(3): 391-410.
  22. Malaviya, S., et al. 2010. Landscape approach for quantifying landuse land cover change (1972-2006) and habitat diversity in a mining area in Central India (Bokaro, Jharkhand). Env. Monit. Assess., 170(1-4):215-229.
  23. Kumar, A. and A.C. Pandey. 2013. Evaluating impact of coal mining activity on landuse/land cover using temporal satellite images in South Karanpura coalfields and environs, Jharkhand state, India. Int. J. Adv. Remote Sensing GIS. 2(1):183-197.
  24. Garai, D. and A.C. Narayana. 2018. Landuse/land cover changes in the mining area of Godavari coalfields of southern India. Egyptian J. Remote Sensing Space Sci., 21(3):375-381.
  25. Dhar, B.B., A. Jamal and S. Ratan. 1991. Air pollution problems in an Indian opencast coal mining complex: A case study. Int. J. Min. Reclam. Env., 5(2):83-88.
  26. Singh, G. and P.K. Sharma. 1992. A study of spatial distribution of air pollutants in some coal mining areas of Raniganj coalfields, India. Env. Int., 18(2):191-200.
  27. Ghose, M.K. and S.R. Majee. 2000. Assessment of the impact on the air environment due to opencast coal mining-An Indian case study. Atmos. Env., 34(17):2791-2796.
  28. Michalski, S.R. 2004. The Jharia mine fire control technical assistances project: An analysis. Int. J. Coal Geol., 59(1-2):83-90.
  29. Chaulya, S.K. 2005. Air quality status of an open pit mining areas in India. Env. Monit. Assess., 105(1-3):369-389.
  30. Mondal, G.C., et al. 2009. Assessment of air quality in and around west Bokaro coalfield, Hazaribagh. Indian J. Env. Prot., 29(7):577-591.
  31. Mandal, K., et al. 2012. Characterization of different road dusts in opencast coal mining areas of India. Env. Monit. Assess., 184(6):3427-3441.
  32. Pandey, B., M. Agrawal and S. Singh. 2014. Assessment of air pollution around coal mining area: Emphasizing on spatial distributions, seasonal variations and heavy metals, using cluster and principal component analysis. Atmos. Poll. Res., 5(1): 79-86.
  33. Sinha, A. and V.K. Singh. 2005. Spontaneous coal seam fires: A global phenomenon. International Conference on International research for sustainable control and management on spontaneous coal seam fires: mitigation a global disaster, Beijing, China. Proceedings, pp 42-66.
  34. Sarkar, B.C., et al. 2007. Geo-environmental quality assessment in Jharia coalfield, India, using multivariate statistics and GIS. Env. Geol., 51: 1177-1196.
  35. Singh, A., et al. 2017b. Mapping of coal-fire in Jharia coalfield, India: A remote sensing based approach. J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens., 45(2):369-376.
  36. Ghosh, R. and D.N. Ghosh. 1991. Impact assessment of mining in an area with a long diverse mining history-A case of coalfield in India. Inst. Eng (I). Min., 72:29-32.
  37. Ghose, M.K. and S.R. Majee. 2007. Characteristics of hazardous airborne dust around an Indian surface coal mining area. Env. Monit. Assess., 130:17-25.
  38. Michalski, S.R., E.S. Custer Jr and P.L. Munshi. 1997. Investigation of the Jharia coalfield mine fires-India. 14thAnnual meeting of the American Society for Surface mining and Reclamation (CD-ROM), Austin, Texas.
  39. BCCL. 2008. Report on master plan for dealing with fire, subsidence and rehabilition in lease holds of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd., Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Ltd., Regional Institute, Dhanbad.
  40. Mishra, R.K., et al. 2020. Detection and analysis of coal fire in Jharia coalfield (JCF) using landsat remote sensing data. J. Indian Soc. Remote Sens., 48(2):181-195.
  41. Gupta, N., T.H. Syed and A. Athiphro. 2013. Monitoring subsurface coal fires in Jharia coalfield using observations of land subsidence from differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DinSAR). J. Earth Syst. Sci., 122 (5):1249-1258.
  42. Banerjee, S.C. 2000. Textbook on prevention and combating coal mine fires. Oxford and IBH, New Delhi. pp 33-34.
  43. CPCB. 2009. National ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) : Gazette notification. Central Pollution Control Board, New Delhi.
  44. Ghose, M.K. and S.K. Banerjee. 1995. Status of air pollution caused by coal washery project in India. Env. Monit. Assess., 130:17-25.
  45. Banerjee, S.K., R.K. Dhar and M.K. Ghose. 1996. Air pollution due to coal washery project and its abatement measures. Env. Manage., 20:235-240.
  46. Ghose, M.K. 2002. Air pollution due to opencast coal mining and the characteristics of air-borne dust-An Indian scenario. Env. Stud., 59:211-228.
  47. Jha, M., S. Misra and S.K. Bharati. 2010. Toxic heavy metals in the ambient air of Jharia coalfields. Ecoscan., 4:305-309.
  48. Dubey, B., A.K. Pal and G. Singh. 2012. Trace metal composition of air borne particulate matter in the coal mining and non-mining areas of Dhanbad region, Jharkhand, India. Atmos. Poll. Res., 3(2):238-246.
  49. Roy, D., et al. 2016. Carbonaceous species and physico-chemical characteristics of PM10in coal mine fire area-A case study. Air Qual. Atmos. Health. 9(4):429-437.
  50. Roy, D., et al. 2019a. Human health risk exposure with respect to particulate-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at mine fire-affected coal mining complex. Env. Sci. Poll. Res., 26(19):19119-19135.
  51. Jena, S. and G. Singh. 2017. Human health risk assessment of airborne trace elements in Dhanbad, India. Atmos. Poll. Res., 8(3):490-502.
  52. Jain, M. K. and N. C. Saxena. 2002. Air quality assessment along Dhanbad – Jharia road. Env. Monit. Assess., 79(3):239-250.
  53. Mishra, A. K., S. K. Maiti and A.K. Pal. 2013. Status of PM10bound heavy metals in ambient air in certain parts of Jharia coalfield, Jharkhand, India. Int. J. Env. Sci., 4(2):141-150.
  54. Kundu, S. and A. K. Pal. 2015. Estimation of air quality in the opencast mine of Jharia coalfield, India. Curr. World Env., 10(2):691.
  55. Singh, J.S., K. P. Singh and M. Agrawal. 1991. Environmental degradation of the Obra-Renukoot-Singrauli area, India and its impact on natural and derived ecosystems. Environmentalist. 11:171-180.
  56. Saini, V., R. P. Gupta and M.K. Arora. 2016. Environmental impact studies in coalfield in India: A case study from Jharia coalfield. Renew. Sustain. Energy. Rev., 53:1222-1239.
  57. Singh, A. K., et al. 2007. Precipitation chemistry and occurrence of acid rain over Dhanbad, coal city of India. Env. Monit. Assess., 125.99-110.
  58. Stracher, G. B. 2002. Coal fires-A burning global recipe for catastrophe. Geotimes. 47(36-37) :66.
  59. Stracher, G. B. and T. P. Taylor. 2004. Coal fires burning out of control around the world: A global catastrophe. Int. J. Coal Geol., 59:7-17.
  60. Finkelman, R. B. and G. B. Stacher. 2011. Environmental and health impacts of coal fires. In Coal and peat fires: A global perspectives. Ed G. B. Stacher, A. Prakash and E. V. Sokol. Elsevier, Netherlands. pp 115-125.
  61. Roy, D., G. Singh and Y.C. Seo. 2019b. Coal mine fire effects on carcinogenicity and non-carcino-gencity human health risks. Env. Poll., 254: 113091.
IJEP Logo

Quick Link

Menu

Query Form

    Contact Us

    Indian Journal of Environmental Protection,
    Kalpana Corporation, Kalpana Bhawan,
    N 10/60 H-12, Shyama Nagar
    P.O. Bajardiha, Varanasi – 221106

    Phone Number : +91 8130034876

    Email: kalpanacorp81@gmail.com

    Websites : www.e-ijep.co.in

    Copyright © 2024 Indian Journal of Environmental Protection | Kalpana Corporation