In this section
@article{Patro:2026:10.1016/j.resourpol.2026.106070,
author = {Patro, PK and Acquaye, A and Ndiaye, M and Knottenbelt, W and Mulligan, C and Salah, K},
doi = {10.1016/j.resourpol.2026.106070},
journal = {Resources Policy},
title = {A blockchain and geospatial AI-enabled governance system for illegal gold mining detection and supply chain traceability},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2026.106070},
volume = {122},
year = {2026}
}
TY - JOUR
AB - Illegal artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) continues to pose major environmental, governance, and mineral-traceability challenges across many resource-dependent economies, particularly within regions characterized by fragmented regulatory oversight, informal extraction networks, and weak supply-chain transparency. In Ghana, illegal ASM activities, commonly referred to as galamsey , have intensified concerns surrounding environmental degradation, ecosystem disruption, and downstream mineral traceability and accountability. Despite Ghana’s stable regulatory framework for sustainable gold mining, these gold supply chain issues persist. To address these challenges, we develop and implement a blockchain and geospatial artificial intelligence (AI)-powered framework. The framework integrates blockchain-based stakeholder governance and immutable compliance management with geospatial AI-driven environmental disturbance detection using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. The framework incorporates a novel data-driven Galamsey Dispersion Index that quantifies mining-related environmental disturbance using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Bare Soil Index, Normalized Difference Moisture Index, Modified Normalized Difference Water Index, and spatial clustering analysis. We implement and validate the framework on the Ethereum blockchain integrated with off-chain geospatial data analysis using Ghana’s ASM gold sector as a representative governance context and the Obuasi mining region as an illustrative case study. The results demonstrate that the proposed framework successfully enables environmental disturbance detection, concession governance, compliance enforcement, and downstream gold-batch transaction screening within a unified digital governance architecture. The concession boundaries shown in the analysis are representative, the illustrated compliance threshold has not been calibrated against ground truth, and the results should therefore be interpreted a
AU - Patro,PK
AU - Acquaye,A
AU - Ndiaye,M
AU - Knottenbelt,W
AU - Mulligan,C
AU - Salah,K
DO - 10.1016/j.resourpol.2026.106070
PY - 2026///
SN - 0301-4207
TI - A blockchain and geospatial AI-enabled governance system for illegal gold mining detection and supply chain traceability
T2 - Resources Policy
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2026.106070
VL - 122
ER -