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IAPRS & SIS, Vol.34, Part 7, "Resource and Environmental Monitoring", Hyderabad, India,2002 
  
ASSESSMENT OF IRON ORE RESOURCE IN BICHOLIM MINING AREA, GOA ALONG 
WITH MONITORING OF ASSOCIATED LAND USE CHANGES THROUGH AEROSPACE 
DATA 
P. K. Gupta, A. P. Singh* 
"Hydrology Discipline, Central Mining Research Institute, Barwa Road, Dhanbad 826001. 
apsingh_3@rediffmail.com 
KEYWORDS: Hematite, ore body, pit, sump, dump, drainage and dwelling. 
ABSTRACT 
Iron ore resource is being quarried at Bicholim mining area since 1956-1957. The geologic set-up, geo-morphic feature and drainage are 
assessed through aerospace data along with relevant ground truth for Bicholim mining area in order to delineate major land use changes. 
The used aerospace data are namely Landsat MSS imagery (December 1972, March 1975), Aerial photograph (February 1978), Landsat 
TM (January 1987) and IRS 1C LISS (November 1989 and February 1997). The visual interpretation of temporal aerospace data has 
provided land and water derived land use changes over the past four decades. Landuse changes depend upon mining environmental 
dynamics and dwelling status. The study clearly demonstrate the util 
ity of developed Remote sensing keys through visual interpretation 
for effective monitoring of major landuse changes pertaining to the mining iron resource. The utilization of temporal aerospace data has 
been proved a successful tool for appraisal of different categories of land use changes with their quantification as a primary estimate 
towards land degradation in conjunction with sufficient ground truth data. 
INTRODUCTION 
The Goa' state with geographic area of 3610 km? along Arabian 
sea at west coast of India was under Portuguese rule for 391 years 
during from 1570 to 1961. The iron ore deposit was discovered in 
1905 through joint efforts put by Portuguese and French with 
allowing mining lease area of 100 hectare and is still practiced. 
The production of iron ore was started in 1910 with bench 
development through opencast mining and is still going on 
(Sinha, 1977). The mining activity was discontinued during First 
and Second World War due to global disturbance. The further 
mining was started around 1950 with exporting iron ore to Japan 
in 1951. Later on iron ore has been exported to Germany, China, 
South Korea, Italy, Belgium and Romania with Japan as major 
consumer. The export of iron ore contributes 3396 of foreign 
exchange to national income towards iron and steel sector 
presently. The export of Goan iron ore in between 1951 to 1966- 
97 has been illustrated through Figure 1 (Sengupta, 1987 & 
Bandhopadhyay, 1996). The demand of iron ore for domestic 
purpose in India was 27, 37 and 51 MT during 1995, 1996 and 
2000 period respectively. It has been projected that 82 MT iron 
ore will be required by 2005 with break up as Fine ore 40MT, 
Lump 29 MT, Concentrated 7 MT, Pellet 6 MT (Nair, 1996). The 
Goan iron ore production through quarrying activity generates 
roughly double in amount the mining waste. The iron ore 
quarrying is confined to 570 km? scattered in north and south 
Goa. The iron ore belt has strike length of 145 km in NW-SE with 
width of 7 — 15 km and cut across by Madei River, a tributary of 
Mandavi-biggest river of Goa. The major iron ore deposit of Goa 
has been illustrated through Figure 2. The navigable rivers play 
key role in iron ore transportation through different size barges, 
which finally reach to Mormagua port for export purpose. The ore 
transportation through shipping and its mishandling allows 
substantial amount of silt among river as water related land use. 
The land and water related land use in association with dwelling 
play major role in overall development for iron ore mining area. 
Amount in MT 
  
  
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 
- Years 
Figure 1. Graph showing export of Goan iron ore in different years 
OBJECTIVE 
Goan iron ore resource mining has been associated with following 
major problems from landuse point of view presently. 
(1) A limited mining lease area is upto 100 hectares. It restricts the 
available land space in and around mining area for dumping of 
overburden and mine waste — a major kind of land use. 
(2) The ore body in mining sector has not been properly 
demarcated grade wise. It allows recovery of hi gh grade without 
conservation of low-grade ore — a type of unmined land. 
(3) There is no common boundary barrier/safety barrier in between 
two successive mining lease areas or cluster mining. These 
cause legallacy aspects towards maintenance of road in mining 
and municipal area. 
(4) The mined out ore from quarry, beneficiation plant are sent to 
Mormagua through navigable river. The rivers are gradually 
silted at each loading point- a water related landuse. 
(5) The mining operation is not feasible in rainy season i.e. June to 
September due to annual rainfall of 2500 — 4000 mm. It causes 
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