Application of Multispectral Remote Sensing for Mapping Flood-Affected Zones in the Brumadinho Mining District (Minas Gerais, Brasil)

Abstract

The collapse of the tailing “Dam B1” of the Córrego do Feijão Mine (Brumadinho, Brasil) that occurred in January 2019 is considered a large socio-environmental flood-disaster where numerous people died and the local flora and fauna were seriously affected, including agricultural areas of the Paraopeba River. This study aims to map the land area affected by the flood by using multispectral satellite images. To pursue this aim, Level-2A multispectral images from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 sensor were acquired before and after the tailing dam collapse in the period 2019–2021. The pre- and post-failure event analysis allowed us to evidence drastic changes in the vegetation rate, as well as in the nature of soils and surficial waters. The spectral signatures of the minerals composing the mining products allowed us to highlight the effective area covered by the flood and to investigate the evolution of land properties after the disaster. This technique opens the possibility for quickly classifying areas involved in floods, as well as obtaining significant information potentially useful for monitoring and planning the reclamation and restoration activities in similar cases worldwide, representing an additional tool for evaluating the environmental issues related to mining operations in large areas at high temporal resolution.