Underground Mining for Meeting Environmental Concerns – A Strategic Approach for Sustainable Mining in Future

Sahu, H. B.; Prakash, N.; Jayanthu, Sukanth

doi:10.1016/j.proeps.2015.06.030

Cited by 21 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Some studies demonstrate that considerable resources of economic minerals remain undiscovered (Herrington, 2013;Singer, 2017). Future mining will increasingly involve deep underground operations (e.g., Sahu et al, 2015), but it will be difficult to find and economically extract all the commodities needed by future communities from deep in the crust, and large, low-grade, open-pit deposits cannot be avoided. In the far future, the global resources base may be supplemented by resources from new frontiers, such as the oceans, seafloor and/or extra-terrestrial sources.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Mining – A Holistic Concept for Sustainable and Acceptable Mineral Production

Nurmi

2017

Annals of Geophysics

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Mining has become increasingly difficult for societal and environmental reasons all over the world. There is an increasing competition with other land uses, and water and energy are scarce in many important mining regions. People are not ready to radically reduce the use of mineral-based products, but increasingly oppose mining. The industry faces major challenges to improve its performance and image. The Green Mining concept (GM) was developed as a major tool to make Finland the forerunner in sustainable mining. It promotes material, water, and energy efficiency to reduce the environmental footprint of mineral-based product life cycles. GM allows the recovery of all useful minerals and minimises mining waste. GM aims to ensure the availability of mineral resources for future generations, which requires long-term investment in mineral exploration supported by geoscientific mapping, mineral systems research and the development of exploration techniques. An important goal of GM is to minimise adverse environmental and social impacts in all stages of the operations, and to maximise local benefits. GM helps to organise the operations in such a way that they are safe and meaningful to employees, and harmless for local residents and the environment. After mine closure, GM helps to restore the mining areas to make them safe and preferably to allow other types of land use. The broadbased participation of local residents and other stakeholders is crucial throughout the mining life cycle, from early exploration to mine closure. Societies, governments, and investors should not tolerate unsustainable mining companies in the future. The mining industry has to solve increasing social, ecological and technical problems of the future by applying holistic concepts, such as the Green Mining concept, if they hope to earn the social license to operate.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Mining – A Holistic Concept for Sustainable and Acceptable Mineral Production

Nurmi

2017

Annals of Geophysics

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“…The landscape condition and soil physicochemical properties are the basis of ecosystem structure [8,[39][40][41]. Approaches towards soil reconstruction depend on the type of mining, e.g., opencast mining using conveyor belt technology [42] or others [43,44]. At this stage, the essential considerations, which were to be ensured include the landscape, reclaiming waterways, handling soils, removal of potential threats and contaminants, capacity to sustain biological populations, integration with the landscape, resilience of natural disturbances, aesthetic values (the affected community), and influencing drivers such as landscape, weather, erosion, etc.…”

Section: Soil Reconstruction (Backfilling) R −2mentioning

confidence: 99%

An Approach to Thresholds for Evaluating Post-Mining Site Reclamation

et al. 2021

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Here, a time-scale conceptual threshold model for assessing, evaluating, documenting, and monitoring post-mining sites reclamation progress was developed. It begins from initial state I0 down to degraded state D0 (which depends on the mining). Reclamation starts with soil reconstruction R−2 up to revegetation R−1 (red zones) to reach minimum threshold R0 (amber zone). Beyond R0 are green zones R1, R2, and R3 representing soil/abiotic conditions, biological, and improved threshold, respectively. The model also identifies potential drivers, land-use options, targets, and endpoints along the threshold reclamation ladder. It is applicable to all degraded ecosystems and adoptable in national and international laws. In this approach study, we identified threshold biotic/abiotic indicators for ascertaining success from R0, future work focuses on measurement and ascribing of threshold values to each of the threshold stage.

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“…Mining operations have a finite lifespan, hence humanity's dependence on nonrenewable resources cannot continue indefinitely [44]. Environmental impacts caused by mining range from destruction of habitat including fauna and flora; land disturbance which includes change of land use and land forms; natural watersheds and drainage patterns; adverse chemical impacts of improperly treated wastes, which include air pollution, waste dumps, and effluents, for example acid mine drainage (AMD); and noise and vibration due to blasting [45]. Hence, noise and dust pollution generated during the excavation process would affect surrounding plants and animals [46].…”

Section: Environmental Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Conceptual Framework for Greener Goldmining through Environmental Management Accounting Practices (EMAPs): The Case of Zimbabwe

Nyakuwanika

Poll

2021

Sustainability

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Goldmining contributes substantially to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Zimbabwean economy through revenue generated from exports, however it also incurred numerous challenges to the environment. Amongst others, these challenges embody ecological degradation; water and air pollution; and depletion of natural resources. In this paper, we establish the effects of mining operations on the environment through a comprehensive literature review, and how the integration of environmental management accounting practices (EMAPs) such as material flow cost accounting (MFCA), life cycle costing (LCC), and activity-based costing (ABC) could be integrated into a conceptual framework to address environmental challenges. EMAPs were chosen as they generate both physical and monetary data, which could promote transparency in material usage within the goldmining sector. Our analyses revealed a substantial body of literature on separate and individual EMAPs, yet very little was found on the integration of EMAPs. The main contribution of this work is the development of an integrated conceptual EMAPs framework on the strength of sets of qualitative propositions, aimed at promoting green goldmining for Zimbabwe as a developing economy. Future work would involve the validation of the framework among key stakeholders in the Zimbabwean goldmining industry.

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Underground Mining for Meeting Environmental Concerns – A Strategic Approach for Sustainable Mining in Future

Cited by 21 publications

References 5 publications

Green Mining – A Holistic Concept for Sustainable and Acceptable Mineral Production

Green Mining – A Holistic Concept for Sustainable and Acceptable Mineral Production

An Approach to Thresholds for Evaluating Post-Mining Site Reclamation

A Conceptual Framework for Greener Goldmining through Environmental Management Accounting Practices (EMAPs): The Case of Zimbabwe

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