A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Environmental Sciences) at the School of Geography, Archaeology & Environmental Studies
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Johannesburg, 2017 / There is a growing interest in the reclamation of the old gold mines’ tailings dumps in Johannesburg city region driven by the economic value of the remaining gold resource. This reclamation activity is accompanied by various rehabilitation methods to reduce issues such as acid mine drainage and wind pollution. The impact of land use and land cover change (LULCC) can have an enormous impact on land development and planning. Monitoring of LULCC is very important in the planning and decision making processes. Remote sensing (RS) as the source of basic data for monitoring change is very highly recommended as tool to monitor changes occurring in the Johannesburg City Region as a result of rehabilitation and reclamation of the gold mines’ tailings deposits. The main aim of the study is to understand how the reclamation and rehabilitation of the historical tailings dumps in Johannesburg are changing land use patterns of the city and its precincts. The objectives are to quantify the changes in land use and land cover as the results of mining rehabilitation using Landsat earth observation data over a period of 30 years at five years intervals and; to recommend on how the land cleared of waste dumps could be used for looking at the surrounding environment spatially. Various Geographical Information Systems techniques are applied here for change detection analysis and monitoring of potential changes in urban dynamics patterns. The results show rate of rehabilitation and reclamation to be slow, taking several years to see a meaningful change. There is some form of bias towards transforming the reclaimed land into industrial zones as opposed to other activities. The success of tailings dumps rehabilitation through revegetation process is highlighted. / MT 2018
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/24029 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Mahao, Tseliso John |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (ix, 45 leaves), application/pdf |
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