Drosscapes of the GCR

Research on mining activities, for the most part, looks at mining activities and their planning implications as they are today. However, limited research within the GCR has been conducted on the post-mining landscapes of the GCR. This project, initiated in 2019, attends to this lacuna, investigating the GCR’s spatial forms as consequences and/or “waste” products of the mining activities within this region. It builds on the Mining landscapes of the GCR (2018) research report, although through an alternative lens of the urban landscapes as dross and drawing inspiration from international studies which look at the post-mining landscape.

The project is framed within the political ecology perspective to create a fertile ground for explaining the interplay between mining and the urban landscape as well as the associated policy implications within the GCR. It then explores the historiography of the GCR’s post-mining landscapes, their locations, their economic, demographic, social, and environmental forms, the scholarly debates and policy work on them as well as issues around their restoration. To that end, the project will use visual, qualitative, quantitative and spatial data as well as policy materials. The main outputs from this project are expected to be a GCRO report and a journal paper.

The current work on the project is a research report. The first part of this output is a conceptual paper related to the description highlighted above. The final draft of the conceptual paper has been completed and has been used to inform the case study selection. A compilation of different case studies is currently being drafted. The case studies will provide grounded and theoretically informed insights into the state of post-mining landscapes in the GCR and their implications for urban, economic and infrastructural development.

Related to this project, Samkelisiwe Khanyile's PhD (completed in 2023) explored the potential for an integrated and holistic conceptualisation and spatial representation of the post-mining and urban landscapes of Gauteng.

Collaborations

Alongside this work, the project team is collaborating with external partners on several projects:

• (2023-2024) With the Centre for Development Support (University of the Free State) and the University of Queensland on a book project on mine closure in South Africa. This resulted in three book chapters listed in the publications list.
• (2021-2025) With the Wits School of Architecture and Planning and TU Delft on a project investigating post-extractive sites and their impact on the Water Energy and Food nexus.
• In 2025, the project team began collaborating with the Society, Work and Politics (SWOP) and the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (WISER) on a project on sustainable mining and a multivalue framework for copper mining, funded by Rio Tinto.

Key partners

Relevant WITS and UJ departments; Wits Mining Institute (WMI); Centre for Development Support: University of the Free State; Wits School of Architecture and Planning; TU Delft; Society, Work and Politics; Australian National University; government; mining companies and non-profit organisations.

Outputs

Maps of the month

Khanyile, S. (2024). Renaturing Gauteng's mining wastescapes? Map of the Month. Gauteng City-Region Observatory. 01 February 2024. https://doi.org/10.36634/QUAU2712.

Publications

Khanyile, S., Tsoriyo, W. and Mahamuza, P. (Forthcoming) Mining legacies and environmental injustice: Systematic mining-led LULC change in the Witwatersrand mining belt, Gauteng, South Africa. Springer: Environmental Management.

Khanyile, S. (2024). A comparison of the efficacy of fuzzy overlay and random forest classification for mapping and shaping perceptions of the post-mining landscape of Gauteng, South Africa. Land, 13, 1761. https://doi.org/10.3390/land13111761.

Botes, L., Khanyile, S. and Mqotyana, Z. (2024). Mine closure and moving towards renewable energy in eMalahleni. In Matebisi, S., L. Marais and V. Nel (Eds.) Local Responses to Mine Closure in South Africa. Routledge Studies of the Extractive Industries and Sustainable Development. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003403326.

Khanyile, S. and Marais, L. (2024). Mine closure policies and strategies in South Africa: a critical review. In Matebisi, S., L. Marais and V. Nel (Eds.) Local Responses to Mine Closure in South Africa. Routledge Studies of the Extractive Industries and Sustainable Development. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003403326.

Ngaka Mosiane, N. and Dzerefos, C. M. (2024). Resistance, resilience and Rustenburg’s mining boom and bust. In Matebisi, S., L. Marais and V. Nel (Eds.) Local Responses to Mine Closure in South Africa. Routledge Studies of the Extractive Industries and Sustainable Development. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003403326.

Khanyile, S. (2023). A GIS framework for the integrated conceptualisation, analysis and visualisation of Gauteng's complex historic and contemporary post-mining urban landscape. PhD thesis. School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand.

Crous, C., Owen, J.R., Marais, L., Khanyile, S. and Kemp, D. (2020). Public disclosure of mine closures by listed South African mining companies. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 28(3), pp.1032-1042. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.2103.

Presentations

Samkelisiwe Khanyile (July 2025). 'Mapping Tailings - And for what? A case for countermapping', 2nd Annual CSO Tailings Conference and Workshop, Holiday Inn, Sunnyside, 30 July 2025.

Samkelisiwe Khanyile (March 2025). 'Mapping the complex socio-environmental transitions of Gauteng's post-mining urban landscape: A GIS approach', American Association of Geographers, Detroit, 24-28 March 2025.

Favaro, S. and Khanyile, S. (2025). 'Caring for the Rand(scape): Entangled stories of a toxic commons', In Milheiro, A. V., and Serrazina, B. (Eds.) (2023). Colonial and post-colonial landscapes: Architecture, colonialism and war. Papers’ booklet. ISCTE-IUL.

Samkelisiwe Khanyile (2024). 'Preserving archival material: Unlocking the future through digitising historical maps'. Presentation to TU Delft students at the Wits Mining Institute, 03 May 2024.

Samkelisiwe Khanyile (2024). 'Critical cartography: Contextualising the post-mining and urban landscape of Gauteng'. Presentation to TU Delft students at the Wits Mining Institute, 03 May 2024.

Samkelisiwe Khanyile and Ngaka Mosiane (2023). 'Investigating the WEF and post-extractive landscapes through a critical cartography approach'. Longue Durée of the Water-Energy-Food nexus in extractive landscapes – Learning from the Gauteng and Limpopo Regions to develop an interdisciplinary approach 2022-2025: Sharing Perspectives, 26 January 2023.

Ngaka Mosiane and Samkelisiwe Khanyile (2023). 'The political economy of WEF in postmining Rustenburg'. Longue Durée of the Water-Energy-Food nexus in extractive landscapes - Learning from the Gauteng and Limpopo Regions to develop an interdisciplinary approach 2022-2025: Sharing Perspectives, 24 January 2023.

Sabina Favaro, Samkelisiwe Khanyile, Gabrielle Hecht and Hannah le Roux (2023). ‘South Africa’s Chernobyl: element histories of the making of a toxic common’. Second International Congress on Colonial and Postcolonial Landscapes: Architecture, Colonialism and War, Lisbon, Portugal,18-20 January 2023.

Samkelisiwe Khanyile (2019). 'Mined the gap': Mapping active and abandoned mines along the Witwatersrand basin: Issues of data availability, data quantity and data quality'. RGS-IBG International Conference, Kensington, London, 27-30 August 2019.

Workshops

On 10 - 17 April 2023, the GCRO project team attended a field trip in the Netherlands hosted by TU Delft.

On 04 - 08 July 2022, the GCRO project team attended a field trip with colleagues from Wits School of Architecture and TU Delft visiting mining sites around Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the Free State.

On 17 May 2022, Ngaka Mosiane and Samkelisiwe Khanyile attended a workshop on mine closure in South Africa.

On 06 - 07 April 2022, Samkelisiwe Khanyile attended the NRF-NWO joint kick-off workshop in relation to the project on post-extractive sites and their impact on the water energy and food nexus.

On 29 September 2021, Samkelsiwe Khanyile attended and participated in a collaborative workshop hosted by the Benchmarks Foundation on the impact of mine dust and water pollution on the children in Snakepark.

On 27 January 2020, Ngaka Mosiane and Samkelisiwe Khanyile attended a workshop at the University of the Free State. The workshop was centred on presenting ongoing work and possible publications by the Mining Towns Research group.

Last updated: 19 May 2026