Interaction between soils, mining waste and the dynamics of supergene mineral phases in metal mining environments of se spain"

Laburpena

The zones of metallic mining industry placed in Mediterranean zones have become in source for pollution by heavy metals that are capable of being mobilized and to be environmentally dispersed affecting the soils, atmosphere, ecosystems and surrounding populations. At European level, some Directives (2006/21/CE y 2009/337/CE) have been developed in order to tackle the problem of deposits of mining waste and its impact on the environment and human populations. That is why, this PhD Thesis aims, beyond the specific aims of the memory, provide support and technical information for policy implementation and further development of these European Directives. The availability in depth of these metallic elements finishes for concerning the superficial availability that allows that these metals should show up to the surface of the mining soils, and therefore, they can be available to the erosive water and wind processes that finally affect the ecosystems and populations. This surface availability is highly associated with physic‐chemical properties and electrokinetic’s of the materials that form soils and geological underlying materials. In this respect, the PhD Thesis was focused on the supergene weathering processes that take place in mine soils and waste and on the study and evaluation of the risks on public health and ecosystems in a former Mediterranean mining area as consequence of the dispersion and mobility of the metallic fractions from the remaining waste deposits. Thus, the study involves combined task‐specific sampling designs and field testing, selection and study of biomarkers of both atmospheric and soil pollution as well as analysis and laboratory simulation, complemented with new technologies such as Geographic Information Systems. In relation to field these tasks, the research was focused mainly on old mining district of Cartagena‐La Union, being an area of higher incidence of some diseases, which in principle could be associated with this high availability environmental metal. This is a district subject to a recent cessation of mining activities (years 90‐91), with high metal concentration at the surface, as well as a major area affected by mining waste deposits so that it can be considered as one of the Europe's largest metal mining. This is joined by the existence of a large human population that is located either in the core mining itself or in its surroundings (Ciudad de Cartagena and Mar Menor tourist areas) that generate a stable population in the vicinity of the 200,000 people and seasonal floating almost double this amount. In this regard, it is noteworthy that according to the report "Lung Cancer in Spain. Radiography 2008", the Spanish Group for Lung Cancer (GECP) showed that the environment of the municipality of La Union, in the heart of the mining area, has one of the highest cancer rates associated with respiratory processes, and therefore possibly because of the inhalation of fine particulate matter enriched in metals, in Spain, although the degree of correlation between both events remains to be elucidated. http://repositorio.bib.upct.es/dspace/