The artisanal mining has rapidly expanded in recent years in Mali and has employed 100,000 to 200,000 people. Other times, the artisanal mining was done by using simple equipment (shovel, package) and the gold treatment was done by washing with the use of pan or sluice; nowadays this activity is modernized by using new equipment (Crusher, Motor pump, Metal detector, Dredge) and new techniques for the gold treatment involving the application of hazardous substances such as Cyanide, Mercury, Arsenic, and others. Although these new techniques enable increased gold production, they have also affected the environment, particularly on the water resource.
The study at three artisanal mine sites along the Bagoé river in Sikasso (Massiokocoro, Massiokocoura, and Alihamdoullilae), highlighted the fact that artisanal mining has impacted negatively on Bagoé’s water quality by increasing the turbidity (Turb) with an average of Turb=232; the community of macroinvertebrate benthic has shown a species richness, S=20 families; Shannon’s diversity (H) and Pielous’ s Equitability Index (E) have shown a diverse community and evenness: Massiokocoura H=1.91, E=0.92; Alihamdoullilae H=1.69, E=0.66; Massiokocoro H= 1.50, E=1. The Family Biotic Index FBI=6.21 indicate a fairly poor water quality (Hilsenhoff, 1987). The canonical analysis (CA) between the mycological and faunistic data shows a positive correlation between the concentration of phosphorus (PO4), cyanide (Cn), sulfate (SO4) and the relative abundance of the dominant families of macroinvertebrate sampled all tolerant to the organic pollution (Hilsenhoff, 1988; Plafkin, 1989).
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