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Sara Kasmaee, University of Bologna

Remote Sensing and Satellite Images in the Raw Materials sector!

Funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement 101177496. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or HaDEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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8/18/2025

Satellites In Our Orbit

Did you know there are roughly 11,700 active satellites - below 2,000 kilometers- in orbit around Earth (May 2025)?

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/

The aim to provide communications, monitoring, safety services across the globe!

What is the aim?

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Use of Satellites

Satellites are used to collect imagery and measurements of the surface of the earth.

These satellites are used to monitor short-term weather, long-term climate change, natural disasters.

Earth observations satellites provide information for: Meteorology, oceanography,

Terrestrial ecology, glaciology, atmospheric science, hydrology, geology, etc.

Types of sensors on these satellites include passive and active remote sensors.

Earth observation satellites

https://www.esa.int/

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What about raw materials application?

What can we do using satellite images in Raw Materials sector?

Exploration of new resources

Study of geological structures

Acid Mine drainage detection and monitoring (Hanelli et al. 2023)

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What about raw materials application?

What can we do using satellite images in Raw Materials sector?

Monitoring Artisanal and Small-Scale mining (Moomen et al. 2022)

Mining residues characterization (Kasmaeeyazdi et al. 2021)

Subsidence monitoring (Kasmaeeyazdi et al. 2021)

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What is the Copernicus program?

EUROPE'S EYES ON EARTH

https://www.copernicus.eu/en

A component of the European Union’s Space programme!

It offers information services that draw from satellite Earth Observation and in-situ (non-space) data.

Bringing together the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), EU Agencies and Mercator Océan, the European Environment Agency (EEA), the Joint Research Center (JRC).

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What is the Copernicus program?

European citizens, ranging from policy makers, researchers, commercial to private users, as well as the global scientific community can benefit in many ways from the data and information provided by Copernicus.

Indeed, Copernicus supports a variety of applications in several non-space domains, which potentially impact businesses and organizations in day-to-day activities and operations.

Agriculture

Blue Economy

Climate change

Forestry

Energy

Health

Urban Planning

Transport

Tourism

etc.!

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From the Copernicus program to the Raw Materials field

The Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS)

The systematic monitoring of biophysical parameters;
Land cover and land use mapping;
Thematic hot-spot mapping;
Imagery and reference data;
Ground motion.

For more Info: https://www.copernicus.eu/en/access-data

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8/18/2025

From the Copernicus program to the Raw Materials field

Are you interested to learn more about the Copernicus data?

Would you like to sign in to the website and maybe download some image?

Then, are you curious to know more about what you can do with the images in raw materials field?

https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/

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8/18/2025

Use of Satellite images in the Raw Materials field

RawMatCop Academy provide for you:

The Introductory course:

You learn how to register in the Copernicus open hub and select your interest image!

You learn about the SNAP software, how to use it and basic concepts of satellite image preprocessing.

You learn how to detect water, vegetation, iron minerals, etc. how to differentiate them and how to calculate the land cover changes in time.

You learn more about the supervised and unsupervised classification methods for mapping!

And basic concepts about SAR interferometry (InSAR) and Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 combination methods.

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Use of Satellite images in the Raw Materials field

RawMatCop Academy provide for you:

The Advanced course:

You learn how to use coding for your data analysis and be independent from softwares!
You learn about the exploring mineral resources and Mineral prospectivity Mapping (opportunities & challenges)
You learn to create time series for exploring environmental impacts of mining (e.g. acid mine drainages)
Then, you learn more about the monitoring mining operations - surface activities & material
Monitoring Ground Motion - mapping InSAR temporal series

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8/18/2025

References

Hanelli, D.; Barth, A.; Volkmer, G.; Köhler, M. Modelling of Acid Mine Drainage in Open Pit Lakes Using Sentinel-2 Time-Series: A Case Study from Lusatia, Germany. Minerals 2023, 13, 271. https://doi.org/10.3390/min13020271

Moomen, A.-W.; Lacroix, P.; Benvenuti, A.; Planque, M.; Piller, T.; Davis, K.; Miranda, M.; Ibrahim, E.; Giuliani, G. Assessing the Applications of Earth Observation Data for Monitoring Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) in Developing Countries. Remote Sens. 2022, 14, 2971. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/rs14132971

Kasmaeeyazdi, S., Abdolmaleki, M., Ibrahim, E., Jingyi, J., Marzan, I., Benito Rodríguez, I. Copernicus data to boost raw material source management: Illustrations from the RawMatCop programme, Resources Policy, (74) 2021,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2021.102384.

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Thank you!

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