Derivation of Mining Sensitivity Index of Watershed (MSIw) for assessing the impact of mining and quarrying on the Satna river basin

Abstract The Satna river basin, spanning over the vast Vindhyan region, has potential geological strata for mining & quarrying for providing raw materials to the building & construction activities, which is vital for settlement expansion & maintenance. Although unregulated mining and quarrying activities pose a substantial threat & disrupt the self-regulating system of the river basins. The majority of the existing research work has focused on the harmful impact on human health & quality deterioration, which provides a limited understanding of the impact in the Vindhyan region. Therefore, this study proposes an MSIw index that quantifies the sensitivity of catchments towards mining & quarrying. This index is based upon the investigation of the spatio-temporal analysis of various hydro-geographic parameters, viz., NDVI, LST, TPIm, mining craters, If, Dd, and Ld, their fuzzification and integration through the product overlay method. It reflects that a substantial portion of the region has the combined effect of the investigated parameters that drives the MSIw and spreading of the anthropogenic negative mining & quarrying threat through pollutant contamination by percolation & surface runoff. Sub-watersheds with high values of MSIw correspond to high physical disintegration led by high temperature, low vegetative cover, and intense drainage dissection. The sub-watersheds having rainfed mining crater, along with the downstream hydrological pattern and proximity to lineament structure, facilitate the pollutant contamination across the study region. Consequently, the findings of this study affirm the significance of the MSIw model in demarcating the influence of mining operations on the self-regulating system of river basin sub-watershed within the Vindhyan region.