Community-based research on the environmental and human health impacts of a laterite nickel mine and smelter in Sorowako, Indonesia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Community-based research between Memorial University of Newfoundland and the \nIndigenous Sorowako Association (KW AS) assessed the environmental and potential \nhuman health impacts of an operational three-decades old laterite nickel mine and smelter \nin Sorowako, Indonesia. An active air sampler and health questionnaire were used in this \nstudy to assess seasonal and diurnal patterns of air quality and prevalent health \nconditions. \nAir was sampled with the use of a high volume air sampler to determine average total \nsuspended particulates (TSP) and airborne metal concentrations. Twelve-hour air samples \nwere collected over approximately five days and five nights during both the dry and rainy \nseasons in six communities. The six communities were located at different distances and \ndirections from the nickel mines and smelter. Air samples were also collected at a \nreference site located further away from the smelter during the rainy season only. The \ncomposition of various metals was analysed by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass \nSpectrometry (ICP-MS). Twenty-four hour dust fall accumulation in approximately 20 \nhouseholds in the seven communities previously mentioned, as well as in 20 homes \nlocated on Lake Matano were recorded with an area standardized Kim wipe swipe. \nCommunities closer to and downwind from the smelter had significantly higher mean \nTSP values in the day of the dry season than communities further away from the smelter. \nAverage concentrations of nickel, cobalt and chromium were higher in the day than in the night in the dry season in communities closer to and downwind from the smelter. There \nwas only a slight significant regression of airborne nickel concentration with increasing \ndistance from the smelter in the day of the dry season (Linear r²= 0.276, p=0.006, Linear \nr²= 0.066, p=0.207) but not in the night of the dry season. Dust fall accumulation did not \nvary significantly among the communities, except in Kampung Baru, a site also exposed \nto sawmill dust. \nA confidential health questionnaire administered by community volunteers assessed \npotential links between prevalent health conditions and mining and smelting in the area. \nTwenty households were selected in a convenience sampling in the eight communities \nwhere dust fall accumulation was also studied. Adult and child versions of the \nquestionnaire focused on respiratory and skin health conditions but also surveyed \nprevalence of other illnesses, and health determinants. \nQuestionnaire responses showed that some health conditions typical of exposure to \nairborne particulates and nickel, such as asthma, rhinitis, and skin tumours, were more \nprevalent in areas closer to and downwind from nickel mining and smelting compared to \nMalili, a community located further away from the mines and smelter. Several positive \ncorrelations between ambient air pollution levels, dust fall accumulation in households, \nand health conditions typically found in nickel industrial areas suggested a potential \nhuman health impact of mining and smelting. \nThe community-based investigation provided a foundation for the community to \ncontinually monitor, assess, and address environmental and health concerns.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".