Though the study did manage to detect the changes resulting from reclamation and rehabilitation of the tailings deposits, it did fail to address certain questionable aspects. Rezoning of land previously owned or still owned by mining companies is treated as confidential information by the authorities and this decreased the depth of the study. Equally, certain departments which deal directly with the mining companies were not able to share records of rehabilitation processes, land condition post reclamation and licence agreements which created some uncertainties in the final results.
The use of free Landsat data in the study was very effective but also limited. The use of high resolution satellite images, which are available at a cost, are highly recommended for a similar study to this. Such data would be able to increase the accuracy of the change detection and supervised classification through the creation of accurate classifiers and vegetation index analysis. Similarly, not all the Landsat images required for the study were readily available which distorted the idea of utilizing data captured on certain season and years.
The use of dedicated data analysis software tools outside of the University jurisdictions is a challenge for long distance learners due to software licence agreements between the University and the suppliers. Therefore, this slows down the process of data preparation and analysis hence influencing data accuracy and timely completion of the research.
38 CHAPTER SIX
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Gold mining activities which took place in the Witwatersrand Basin have changed LULC of the JCR. There are numerous man-made mountains which are affecting the urban dynamics of the JCR. Restrictions of urban development as a result of waste from mining activities should be treated as a serious concern and threat to human wellbeing and development. There is an ongoing process of dumps rehabilitation and reclamation in the JCR, and this activity is changing the regions landscape and urban dynamics. New pockets of land is being made available for new development. This study emphasised the benefits of RS in the assessment of pattern of change and rate of change over a 30 year period from 1985 to 2015. The rate of rehabilitation and reclamation turned out to be slow, taking several years to see a meaningful change. RS techniques are able to detect these slow processes through its ability to compare historical features with the current features pixel by pixel for change detection.
It is noted that there is some form of bias towards transforming the reclaimed land into industrial zones as opposed to other activities. This makes one wonder on whether this is driven by failure to completely rehabilitate that land, once occupied by tailings deposits, to the standard suitable for human habitat. There is a vast area of land in the JCR occupied by tailings dumps which are well vegetated, and green energy generation in the form of solar photovoltaic could make a better use of this land for generation of clean energy.
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