Decision support methods for the environmental assessment of contamination at mining sites

Abstract

Polluting mine accidents and widespread environmental contamination associated with historic mining in Europe and elsewhere has triggered the improvement of related environmental legislation and of the environmental assessment and management methods for the mining industry. Mining has some unique features such as natural background pollution associated with natural mineral deposits, industrial activities and contamination located in the three-dimensional sub-surface space, the problem of long-term remediation after mine closure, problem of secondary contaminated areas around mine sites and abandoned mines in historic regions like Europe. These mining-specific problems require special tools to address the complexity of the environmental problems of mining-related contamination. The objective of this paper is to review and evaluate some of the decision support methods that have been developed and applied to mining contamination. In this paper, only those methods that are both efficient decision support tools and provide a 'holistic' approach to the complex problem as well are considered. These tools are (1) landscape ecology, (2) industrial ecology, (3) landscape geochemistry, (4) geo-environmental models, (5) environmental impact assessment, (6) environmental risk assessment, (7) material flow analysis and (8) life cycle assessment. This unique inter-disciplinary study should enable both the researcher and the practitioner to obtain broad view on the state-of-the-art of decision support methods for the environmental assessment of contamination at mine sites. Documented examples and abundant references are also provided.

Optimum cut-off grade’s calculation in open pit mines with regard to reducing the undesirable environmental impacts

“…address the problem in its integrated complexity and (2) direct decision support tools, i.e. environmental decisions can be directly based on their results ( Figure 1) [3].…”

“…They concluded that their approach causes Figure 1. The environmental decision-making process and the decision support role of sciences [3].…”

Parameter estimation and prediction for groundwater contamination based on measure theory

“…There has been a great deal of work regarding the development of theoretical and computational frameworks for contaminant remediation incorporating uncertainties in the parameters and models [see Bolster et al ., ; Agostini et al ., , ; Argent et al ., ; Tartakovsky , ; Jordan and Abdaal , ; National Research Council , ]. Often, there is uncertainty in the underlying flow and transport models and model inadequacy studies can improve results [ Ye et al ., ; Beven and Westerberg , ].…”

Groundwater remediation using the information gap decision theory

“…The site and technological complexities require data‐driven and model‐driven decision analyses for environmental management in which limited site information and physics models are coupled to perform scientifically defensible and legally sound risk assessment and decision analysis. However, such theoretical methodologies and computational tools for subsurface contaminant remediation that explicitly account for lack of or limited knowledge about the governing process and their parameters are often insufficient [ Agostini et al ., ; Argent et al ., ; Deeb et al ., ; Jordan and Abdaal , ; NRC , ; Tartakovsky , ; Bolster et al ., ].…”