244 1. INTRODUCTION Major mining activities involving the extraction of huge quantities of mineral deposits emit significant amounts of dust particles, also known particulate matter (PM). These emissions are unintentional and irregular, often from non-point sources rather than defined stacks or vents, and can be termed fugitive emissions. Fugitive PM is more challenging to measure, model, and mitigate as it can spread over large areas, affecting mining and adjoining communities. Based on the type of mining activity, the mineral being extracted, and the volume of mineral handled, emitted PM can be of varying sizes, shapes, and compositions (Kasongo et al., 2024). A significant proportion of mining-generated PM is mineral-bearing, associated with heavy metals and potentially toxic elements (Yu and Zahidi et al., 2023). These emitted particles interfere with the breathing pattern of air and pose significant health and safety hazards to the mine workers (Patra et al., 2026). Particles smaller than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) have the potential to reach deeper parts of the human respiratory system and cause several irreversible diseases like coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, silicosis, asbestosis, siderosis, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis (Liu and Liu, 2020). Therefore, accurate real-time measurement and prediction of the PM concentration emitted from mine workings are crucial for assessing the potential health risks to mine workers and adjoining communities. Mining operations in surface mine are not restricted to one level but are operated in tandem at different working locations. The nature of operations limits the accurate measurement of real-time PM emissions through conventional monitoring methods due to the cost and resources requirements like continuous electricity and manpower. Consequently, real-time measurements that provide information about the pollutant concentration and its variations during working hours remain unevaluated or poorly evaluated, leading to incorrect exposure estimates for mine workers. Several high-end portable monitoring instruments capable of providing PM concentration measurements at fine time resolution (e.g., 1 min interval) have been employed in surface mines (Gautam and Patra, 2015; Boente et al., 2022). Unlike filterbased instruments that provide weighted average measurements, these gold-standard devices rely on optical principles for detecting particles in the incoming airflow. Based on a similar working principle, compact and less expensive PM sensors emerged as an alternative tool for real-time PM monitoring. Recently, low-cost PM sensors (LCPMS) have been extensively calibrated and used in conjunction with standard regulatory instruments to monitor aerosol concentrations (Crilley et al., 2017). The sensors use the light scattering principle to detect particle size and provide real-time particle and mass concentrations (Alfano et al., 2020). Further, LCPMS are miniature, portable, and several times less expensive than the reference instruments. LCPMS are deployed in large numbers to obtain fine-scale temporal and spatial coverage of pollutant concentrations in real time. However, this transformative technology has not yet been widely adopted in the mining industry, where traditional monitoring methods continue to dominate. Several mining regulatory authorities mandate use of continuous personal dust monitor (CPDM) to evaluate the exposure to dust by mine workers. To protect miners from the health risk associated with inhalation of respirable coal mine dust, Mine Safety and Health
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