Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 2166-2186; doi:10.3390/rs3102166 OPEN ACCESS Remote Sensing ISSN 2072-4292 www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing Article Monitoring the Extent of Contamination from Acid Mine Drainage in the Iberian Pyrite Belt (SW Spain) Using Hyperspectral Imagery Asuncion Riaza 1,*, Jorge Buzzi 1, Eduardo García-Meléndez 2, Veronique Carrère 3 and Andreas Müller 4 1 Geological Survey of Spain (IGME), La Calera 1, 28760 Tres Cantos, E-28003 Madrid, Spain; E-Mail:
[email protected] 2 Facultad de Ciencias Ambientales, Universidad de León, Campus de Vegazana s/n, E-24071 León, Spain; E-Mail:
[email protected] 3 Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique de Nantes, 2 rue de la Houssinière BP 92208, 44322 Nantes Cedex 3, France; E-Mail:
[email protected] 4 Remote Sensing Data Centre, German Aerospace Research (DLR), P.O. Box 1116, D-82234 Wessling, Germany; E-Mail:
[email protected] * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail:
[email protected]; Tel.: +34-91-728-7249; Fax: +34-91-728-7202. Received: 25 July 2011; in revised form: 6 September 2011 / Accepted: 2 October 2011 / Published: 14 October 2011 Abstract: Monitoring mine waste from sulfide deposits by hyperspectral remote sensing can be used to predict surface water quality by quantitatively estimating acid drainage and metal contamination on a yearly basis. In addition, analysis of the mineralogy of surface crusts rich in soluble salts can provide a record of annual humidity and temperature. In fact, temporal monitoring of salt efflorescence from mine wastes at a mine site in the Iberian Pyrite Belt (Huelva, Spain) has been achieved using hyperspectral airborne Hymap data.