ASGM Baseline Case Study: Nicaragua - Lecture 4

This document, used for Lecture 4 on artisanal and small-scale gold mining baselines, presents the Nicaragua case study from Estimating Mercury Use and Documenting Practices in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (Methods and Tools, Version 1.0). It describes an approach to estimate mercury use and document mining practices by combining existing information with new field data. The document outlines scoping through document review, stakeholder engagement, and site visits, then defines six mining regions for structured data collection. It explains how information on processing systems and mercury-to-gold ratios is compiled, averaged at regional level, and aggregated to produce national estimates, while noting the prevalence of informal operations and varied processing technologies.