2023/11/20 by Abeya, Cherinet
#Environment #Socioeconomic #Stone quarrying
paper · doi:10.20372/star.v12i1.06
Although quarrying is an economically worthwhile business, it is an extractive and exploitive industry that inevitably depletes natural resources. In the study area, the destructive nature of quarrying, together with poor management of quarry sites, forms a major risk to the environmental degradation and socio-economic activities of people. The study aims to assess the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of stone quarrying in Aira district. It has employed a descriptive survey and experimental research design that collected the required data through questionnaires, interviews, observation, and soil samples taken at a depth of 0–20 cm from 0–5 years, 6–10 years, and above 10 years of the quarry site. One hundred and one respondents (i.e., 43 respondents from quarry workers and 58 respondents from residential areas) were selected using a simple random sampling technique. The collected data was analysed using a statistical package for social science for cross-tabulation and to generate frequencies and statistical graphs for the interpretation of the data. As the research result indicated, even though quarrying has a significant impact on job creation, the payment obtained and the workload are not balanced. Also, the study findings indicated that the major social impacts were health-related impacts such as stress, cough, and death of humans, property damage, and air pollution (dust). Regarding the environment, the loss of biodiversity has caused land degradation, deforestation, land use change, and a change in landscape. From the total respondents, 65.3% said that an activity has a distractive impact on the physical environment.