Minimising the environmental impact of mining operations

The landscape is a vital part of the natural and man-made environment. Often mine planners fail to adequately predict, recognise or deal with the visual impact of a new development or the pollution that results from that development. The result has been a serious erosion of the character and quality of many of the Chinese urban and rural landscapes. Visibility mapping and visualisation techniques are central to the effective prediction and communication of landscape, pollutant and visual impacts. The techniques must be carefully chosen and rigorously applied, as they will be subject to close scrutiny and, in the case of contentious developments, may need to be explained and substantiated at a public or government enquiry (The Landscape Institute, 1995). Computer Graphics (CG) and Virtual Reality (VR) techniques have been used for a number of environmental visualisations. The exponential development of this technology has left the development of application methodologies behind; resulting in an under-utilisation of the advanced visualisation techniques and technology on offer.