ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING OF THE EFFECTS OF CONVENTIONAL AND ARTISANAL GOLD MINING ON WATER QUALITY IN NGWABALOZI RIVER, SOUTHERN ZIMBABWE.

Small-scale gold mining, currently being practised by
over 300,000 people in Zimbabwe (Maponga and
Ngorima, 2003) with an annual gold production of up to
5 tonnes (Maponga, 1997) uses mercury for the recovery
of gold from the ore in a process called amalgamation
(Shoko and Love, 2005). While artisanal mining is
believed to sustain the livelihood of at least two million
people in Zimbabwe, directly and indirectly through ancillary services and secondary economic activities , its environmental
impacts are quite evident.
http://eaas-journal.org/survey/userfiles/files/v4i1003%20Agricultural%20Engineering.pdf