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Mining and Life on Land
Published in Cristian Parra, Brandon Lewis, Saleem H. Ali, Mining, Materials, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 2020
Mine closure is a process of transitioning from active mining to an alternative land use, and involves environmental, social, and economic concerns. Reasons for mine abandonment are diverse and include (Dales and Ramasamy, 2019): Lack of mine closure policies or regulations, or requirements to remediate or rehabilitate abandoned mines;Ineffective enforcement of mine reclamation policies and/or minimal penalties for noncompliance;Lack of transparency in mine closure planning, funding mechanisms, or government oversight; Inadequate financial assurance, human resources or capacity to implement mine rehabilitation plans;Armed conflict, political instability or crisis, leading to an unscheduled halt of mining operations.
Environmental and Social Impact Assessment
Published in Karlheinz Spitz, John Trudinger, Mining and the Environment, 2019
Karlheinz Spitz, John Trudinger
Environmental and social impacts require monitoring not only at the project site, but in the downstream environment, and in adjacent areas and communities. Monitoring should also include reference or ‘control’ areas and communities unaffected by mine activities. Monitoring the development of a nearby community with a similar social and economic setting, but unaffected by the mine, will enable the documentation of changes over time that occur naturally in the absence of the project. This will facilitate evaluation of the success of community development programs for communities that are directly affected by and benefit from the mine activity. Monitoring should be carried out at an agreed-upon frequency until mine closure is completed. Post-mining monitoring can then be used to demonstrate the effectiveness or otherwise, of mine closure measures. Similar to the management plan, the monitoring plan is a dynamic document and parameters, frequency, and locations will change over the life of the mine.
Mining and the Environment
Published in Sheila Devasahayam, Kim Dowling, Manoj K. Mahapatra, Sustainability in the Mineral and Energy Sectors, 2016
Greg You, Dakshith Ruvin Wijesinghe
Once the mine closure is completed, post-closure management is conducted to ensure whether the closure has been sustainable. This requires continuous monitoring and ongoing management. The continuous monitoring includes stakeholder participation in different areas such as mining managers and general public to assess the post-closure related issues. Generally, post-mine closure activities are planned according to the requirements of the sites, land owners and the type of land use. Some of the ongoing post-closure activities can be Noxious weed controlExclusion or control of grazing animalsControl of public accessFire managementMaintenance of safety signs and fences (Bell et al., 2006)
Effects of abandoned coal mine on the water quality
Published in International Journal of Coal Preparation and Utilization, 2022
Gulsen Tozsin, Ali Ihsan Arol, Sebnem Duzgun, Hilal Soydan, Abdulvahit Torun
Majority of mine waste lands contain residual sulfides whose oxidation leads to acidic effluents if the acid-producing potential is higher than the buffering capacity of rocks in these areas (Heikkinen and Raisanen 2009; Malakooti et al. 2015; Nordstrom 2011; Tozsin, Arol, and Cayci 2014). Abandoned mine lands are significant source of AMD (Parbhakar-Fox et al. 2014; Smuda et al. 2007). Effective management of AMD is an important rehabilitation challenge for abandoned mines. At these mines, when sulfide-rich materials are exposed to water and air, AMD is produced. Under these acidic conditions, dissolution of heavy metals and thus drainage of heavy metal contaminants to soil and water occurs. The drainage may continue throughout the mining activities and long after mine closure (Parbhakar-Fox et al. 2014). Therefore, special precautions should be taken to reduce the risk of acidic water to the environment and health, which requires evaluation of AMD potential in the mine environment.
Mined land suitability assessment: a semi-quantitative approach based on a new classification of post-mining land uses
Published in International Journal of Mining, Reclamation and Environment, 2021
Sina Amirshenava, Morteza Osanloo
Mining of metals and minerals helps to supply the raw materials, economic growth, creating job opportunities directly and indirectly, and developing substructures, leading to human development. Despite these benefits, mining activities have some negative impacts on the surrounding area (e.g. water, air, and soil pollution, landscape degradation, damage to flora and fauna, etc.), which threaten the achievement of Sustainable Development (SD) goals entirely [1,2]. One of the main principles of modern-mining is trying to make mining activities more sustainable. In the modern-mining life-cycle, the post-mining stage (mine closure and reclamation) is regarded as the most important stage to perform responsible mining and achieve the SD goals [3]. In the recent century, human demand for high-quality life and consequently requesting a better environment has increased. As a result, Post-Mining Land-Use (PMLU) planning has become important and is considered one of the crucial stages of mine planning to obtain sustainable mining operations (Figure 1).
Small step, great rewards: rethinking mining sustainability from old perspectives to new frames
Published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 2021
Bing Wang, Xiang-Qian Pei, Yong-Jin Zhang, Yun-Bing Hou, Guo-Ping Hu
Fortunately, this topic of sustainability of the mining industry has received wide attention from the government, the academia and the public, including local authorities and the coal mining enterprises. For example, the social aspects of mine closure have been considered by governmental officers and confirmed that mine closure is not only the physical rehabilitation of the mine site, but also a governance issue for sustainability. The Chinese Academy of Engineering and National Energy Administration implemented the strategic consulting projects on the comprehensive utilization of abandoned coal mine resources in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Owing to sufficient attention, sustainable management of mine closure will become the national strategy for the next-round transformation of coal mining industry on the heels of the reduction of coal production capacity. These intensive attentions for mining sustainability make the decision-making research on mine closure necessary for this industry.