Environmental sustainability assessment due to stone quarrying and crushing activities in Jaflong, Sylhet

Quarrying and crushing activities constitute a major threat to the environment and occupational health of the workers in Jaflong, Sylhet. This study aims to determine the environmental sustainability of stone quarrying and crushing activities considering four dominant environmental components, viz. physicochemical parameters of water, PM_2.5 and PM₁₀, sound, and land use land cover (LULC). Water quality was measured in a seasonal variation, and air and sound data were collected in an 8-h period of every weekday of 2 months while LULC data were also collected from 1999 to 2019 with 5 years of interval. Water quality index (WQI) and cluster analysis were applied to classify the pollution sources while inverse distance weighting (IDW) and weighted overlay were used to show the vulnerable zone. All the parameters were considered with the established limit of WHO. WQI detects that the sampling stations located near the quarrying site were responsible for the deterioration of the water quality. Cluster analysis identified that the S8 and S10 sites were heavily susceptible to air and sound pollution. IDW and WO ranked the south-western lower stream and tribal village located at the north-western side as moderately to highly polluted. Correlation analysis illustrated that the values of air and sound parameters were concentrated above the permissible limit. Besides, LULC change revealed the significant lowering trend of vegetation and water bodies whereas it shows the upward trend of barren land and settlement. Finally, the extensive quarrying and crushing activities without any safety measure lead to breaking the environmental sustainability as well as workers and nearby dwellers were exposed to several respiratory diseases.