International Journal of Health Sciences

Using Satellite Data to Estimate Risk of Mercury Exposure in the Amazonian Wayana Language Territory between Suriname, French Guiana, and Brazil
Daniel Peplow

Abstract
There is a need for methods that measure public and environmental health risk due to mercury from small-scale gold mines (SSGMs) at a regional scale in tropical forests. The synoptic regional-scale perspective of overhead remote imaging technology was used to supplement previous ground-level community risk and health assessment studies. The objective was to evaluate the usefulness of remote sensing as a method for measuring mercury impacts over large areas and test whether regional-level vegetation index values are lower in a test area where mercury contamination from SSGMs are known to impact human health compared to index values in a pristine reference area. Low vegetation index values were obtained in the test area compared to the high index values at the pristine reference location where vegetation stress is low suggesting remote sensing is a useful method for measuring mercury impacts, and the risk to human and environmental health, over large areas.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/ijhs.v9n3a1