Mining Can Exacerbate Global Degradation of Dryland

Abstract

Groundwater storage (GS) is the major water resource for vegetation in drylands. Thus, positive relationships between vegetative growth condition (VGC) and GS are expected in drylands. Since mining-induced dewatering tends to deplete GS surrounding mine sites, VGC should become less favorable due to a shortage of accessible water. However, quantitative analysis repealed the opposite. We found that global annual mineral production in drylands increased by 24%, while GS decreased by 22% but the VGC improved by 37% (2002–2010). And negative relationships between VGC and GS were detected in 84.7% of global dryland mine sites. We concluded that irrigation supported by mining-induced dewatering promoted the vegetation growth surrounding mine sites. However, since the GS is limited, irrigation-supported vegetation growth is unsustainable. This study elucidates the reason behind these abnormal negative relationships and highlights the potential risk of vegetation degradation induced by unsustainable groundwater depletion in global dryland mine sites.