RawMatCop: developing skills at the intersection between earth observation and the raw materials community

The RawMatCop programme was launched in 2017 and aims to develop skills, expertise, demonstrations, and applications of Copernicus data to the raw materials sector. It is co-funded by the European Commission (DG for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs) and the EIT RawMaterials (RawMaterials Academy).
Raw materials have become increasingly important to the European Union's economy, growth, and competitiveness. In this context, the EU aims to facilitate the exchange of best practices among its member states to improve the sustainable and safe supply of raw materials to the EU economy and society. Thus, monitoring of mining activities and environmental impact of waste and residue management are key issues of that strategy. With state-of-the-art spaceborne imagery, Copernicus has a strong potential in contributing to EU’s requirements and expectations.
The aim of RawMatCop is to illustrate the usefulness of Copernicus data through three 'Research & Application Areas’ relevant for the raw materials sector: (1) multi-scale and multi-source exploration, (2) spatiotemporal mapping of dust dispersion around mining sites, (3) monitoring of surface/subsurface deformation.
Multispectral data proves to be an incredible tool for regional scale mapping of surface alterations associated to mineralization or mining activities. One clear advantage of Sentinel-2 data over other sensors is that it has a good coverage of the visible and near infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, which makes it an ideal tool for mapping iron-oxides. The current activities of RawMatCop include mapping alterations and iron features associated to Volcanic Hosted Massive Sulfides (Iberian Pyrite Belt, Spain) as well as mapping the weathering of lateritic profiles and iron-oxide associated to active mining in New Caledonia. For this purpose, several workflow based on downscaling from satellite based to in-situ observations are being tested. Furthermore, RawMatCorp is also contributing to the consistency assessment of mostly open-source atmospheric correction approaches used for Sentinel-2 processing (iCOR, Sen2Cor, MAJA) and the influence of the mining setting on their performance. Moreover, ground deformation is one of the most important hazards related to mining activities, and RawMatCorp is also addressing this topic through monitoring the Riotinto mine (SW Spain). This monitoring utilizes SAR and passive seismic techniques to develop a joint Early Warning System aiming to reduce risks on ground mechanical integrity.