Estimating the Footprint of Artisanal Mining in Africa
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) supplies livelihoods and critical minerals but has been linked to conflict and environmental degradation. We enable monitoring of this largely informal sector by creating high-resolution maps of ASM's footprint in Africa using machine learning models that integrate geographic features and satellite imagery. We find ASM is more extensive than documented: in five countries with on-the-ground surveys, we predict over 231,000 1-km2 grid cells [±2 standard errors: 170,153-297,710] contain ASM activity – over 40 times that recorded by surveyors. Adapting methods for spatial domain adaptation, we map ASM across 20 total countries, estimating that 4% [2-8%] of territory and 17% [10-30%] of the population are impacted by ASM, which encroaches on a larger share of settlements and ecosystems than previously understood.
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