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New recommendations from an international research project could help reduce the environmental impact of metal mining on rivers in the Philippines and guide the mining industry to become more sustainable at all scales, the project’s leaders say.
 
Since 2020, experts from the University of Glasgow in the UK and University of the Philippines Los Baños have led PAMANA – the Philippine Mining at the National to Catchment Scale: From Legacy Impacts to Sustainable Futures project.
 
The project’s outcomes are based on the first comprehensive national-scale study of rivers in the Philippines, which the team undertook over the course of three years.
 
Their findings, unveiled for the first time this week, point the way to how the Philippines can take a more robust approach to managing mining activities and protecting its rivers.
 
In recent years, the Philippines has experienced a boom in mining, accelerated by global demand for the minerals required by new technologies which will help deliver the world’s transition to clean energy.
 
The country’s mining activities take place in areas frequently hit by typhoons and floods, where water quality is also affected by drainage from different land uses and contributions from natural sources like hot springs.
 
The PAMANA partners set out to establish groundbreaking new national databases and standardised procedures to help properly understand and manage these complex environments, and help protect rivers from metal pollution as climate change makes national weather systems increasingly unpredictable.
 
To do so, they undertook the first nationwide baseline survey of water quality and ecological health across ten rivers in Luzon and Mindanao. They measured how rivers transport metals and nutrients from land to sea, discovering that the rivers each had different thresholds for levels of metal that they could process.
To understand the specific impacts of mining, the team conducted detailed studies of sub-catchments in the Agno River Basin, monitoring water quality during wet and dry seasons and sampling along river networks.
 
Numerical modelling techniques allowed them to quantify the effects of both large and small-scale mining on sediment movement, which showed how drainage from the land surrounding river systems controls the spread of mining waste.
 
The team also worked closely with decisionmakers and communities across the Philippines, setting up interviews and focus group discussions with government agencies, mining companies, local communities, and small-scale miners.
 
Professor Richard Williams, of the University of Glasgow’s School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, is one of PAMANA’s two principal investigators. He said: “This project brought together experts from the UK and the Philippines to undertake in-depth exploration of national-scale changes that could help the Philippines take a more sustainable approach to mining.
 
“The Philippines’ unique environmental conditions mean that they need their own environmental standards and national geochemical database, which could be developed with the baseline data we’ve collected as a starting point. That should be backed by a comprehensive national river health monitoring programme, to track the impact of both changing environmental conditions and the effect of renewed efforts to protect waterways.
 
“A key aspect of those recommendations is considering how mining will impact land and rivers for centuries to come by taking into account the future effects of climate change on mined areas and the routes by which sediment is carried to rivers. Our research revealed that hot springs were an unexpected contributor of potentially hazardous metals, so decisionmakers must also consider sources of contamination beyond mining.”
 
Professor Decibel Faustino-Eslava from the University of the Philippines Los Baños, is also co-investigator of PAMANA. She said: “Finding better ways to work with small-scale miners in the future is also important. These miners often operate without permits and regulations, but developing new guidelines that they could follow with advice on topics like more safely storing mine waste could help reduce the impact of their activities. Simpler regulations could also help make their work legal, and therefore more easily managed by authorities.
 
“On a wider scale, managing mining at the catchment level, which considers entire river systems rather than individual sites, could help develop a better understanding of how mining affects communities downstream, and how the impact across a wider area could be controlled and guided more effectively in the future.
 
“Finally, since our research showed that rivers vary significantly in their response to trace metals, we recommend that each river system will require its own bespoke set of quality standards rather than trying to force a universal approach to monitoring.”
 
Professor Williams added: “These recommendations aren't just about environmental protection - they're also about creating more stable regulations that encourage investment while ensuring mining benefits local communities. If they are implemented across the Philippines in the years to come, we could see a very positive transformation in how mining is perceived and managed in the country."
 
PAMANA is a collaboration between the University of Glasgow, Liverpool John Moores University, the University of Hull, University of Exeter, Brunel University London and four Philippine universities.
 
It is part of the wider Sustainable Mineral Resources in the Philippines (SMRP) Programme, which is funded by UK Research and Innovation’s Natural Environment Research Council (UKRI-NERC) and the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD).
 
The SMRP programme aims to improve understanding of the impacts of past and
future mining practices in the Philippines and to develop innovative approaches for mineral production that minimise adverse effects on the environment and promote the health and well- being of communities.
 
A second project supported by SMRP, Philippines Remediation of Mine Tailings (PROMT), has also released recommendations based on their research. PROMT is led by researchers from the University of Leicester and the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute.

First published: 20 November 2024