Prospective Review of Mining Effects on Hydrology in a Water-scarce Eco-Environment

 Water scarcity has become one of the most challenging problems in many countries around the world, and many aspects can be attributed to economic development activities including the emerging industrial operations and competition associated with such activities among companies in the mining industry. The effects of drought due to the uneven seasonal distribution of water resources also play an important role in water scarcity. The main objective of this review is to discuss the eco-environmental problems associated with mining in water-scarce mining area, and to propose a system that can provide the best solution to the scarcity-associated issues in different water-scarce environments, taking an example of the north-western region of China. Existing literature on water scarcity and its associated problems, environmental damages induced by mining activities such as drawdown of water level and reduced or dried up surface water, dried up soil, dead vegetation and desertification were consulted and summarized. A Four-Set-up System (4-SuS) is proposed as a future prospect, and was designed using different Software such as Adobe Illustrator, CAD and GIMP. The system is composed of water trading, the use of traded water in the underground space in synergy with pumping filtrated water back to the surface, backfilling the dried-up aquifers, and then the use of stone-layer-trapped water (SLTW) for different activities on the surface. The 4-SuS system is convertible to a Three-Set-up System (3-SuS) in case the area is too arid to possess SLTW or when the stone layer lies deep underground in such a way that it is not easy to drill for SLTW. The proposed 4-SuS system proves that, if correctly implemented considering all necessary aspects of the water-scarce environment, it is possible to trade water from phreatic zone to the water-scarce mining area, and may serve as the best solution to water scarcity challenges around the world.