EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF STONE QUARRYING ON AIR AND WATER ENVIRONMENT IN MAHENDRAGARH DISTRICT, HARYANA

Abstract

In recent years, the environment has become a major concern for the human survival across the countries. To comprehend the nature and scope of these potentially hazardous events, a systematic and interdisciplinary approach is required for mapping, monitoring, and managing the effects of mining activities. The need for building materials has significantly increased due to the construction industry's rapid expansion, which is necessary to satisfy the society's infrastructure and housing needs as well as the demands of today's growing population. Stone quarrying still plays a significant part in this process. However, the activity has severely damaged the ecosystem, and resulted in socio-economic conflicts in the study area. Several studies have identified significant environmental and socioeconomic issues associated with quarrying, including landscape modification that affects local biodiversity, creation of wastelands, air and noise pollution, illegal stone excavation, accidents, and in some places, a decline in groundwater table etc. Quarrying has a negative impact on the environment in a variety of ways including rock exploration and blasting, rock transport, and waste rock disposal. The present study was done to estimate seasonal variation of particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) emissions from various stone quarrying operations in Bakhrija mines, Mahendragarh, Haryana. According to the findings, the main factors contributing to dust production include drilling, blasting, crushing, and transport of mined material. While drilling, blasting, and loading were the causes of a larger proportion of PM10 emissions, vehicular movement caused roadside dust to be further crushed and re-suspended, which led to the formation of a substantially higher fraction of finer dust (PM2.5). Quarrying/mining also degrade the quality of water around the mining region. Although water quality is acceptable for drinking but parameters such as TDS (total dissolved solids), TH (total hardness), Calcium, Magnesium, Fluoride etc, are recorded higher than the desirable limit at few places. Groundwater chemistry was observed to be influenced by silicate weathering and reverse Base Exchange. The shallow meteoric genesis groundwater was mostly Na-Cl type, while the deep meteoric genesis groundwater was mostly Na-HCO3 type. The geochemical results indicate that dissolution of carbonate minerals may have resulted in fluoride solubilisation in groundwater via the ion exchange mechanism. To manage the air quality it is suggested to restrict dispersion of dust during crushing. Dust dispersion may be controlled by developing green belt, and by regular sprinkling of water on unpaved roads. The resuspended dust can be minimised by covering the material during transportation.