Assessing the visual impacts of surface mining: a systematic review

Abstract

This paper provides a systematic review of the methodologies used to evaluate the visual impacts of surface mining. The main objectives are: (a) to analyse the scientific literature and identify the most important issues and the methods and tools used; (b) to conduct an analysis using descriptive of statistical methods and qualitative interpretation; and (c) to evaluate the state of knowledge on this particular topic and identify gaps in the literature, to suggest future research directions. The findings of the analysis suggest that there is no single method capable of integrating all dimensions of the landscape and, thus, future research should put more emphasis on incorporating as many factors contributing to the visual impact of mining as possible towards developing holistic approaches.