Abstract
As an economic activity, mining can have positive and negative effects for the community. These negative impacts along with some of the social, economic, and environmental impacts of mining actions threaten the achievement of sustain- able development (SD) goals. Therefore, an impact evaluation of SD indexes is significant for protecting mining actions in line with the objectives of SD. For that reason, a system classification was proposed with the use of the fuzzy decision- making trial and evaluation laboratory (fuzzy DEMATEL) technique to study and analyse eleven impacting factor inter- relationships in open pit mines. Since this technique is based upon the opinion of experts, the fuzzy coding technique was used. In this manner, the weight of the impacting factors and their related ratings were chosen to develop a new classification system. Based on the proposed rating system, FDSDI was introduced to describe system-levels qualita- tively and quantitatively. The application of FDSDI was investigated in a bauxite mine as a case study. The results show that FDSDI is an easy and effective tool to evaluate sustainability in bauxite mining. Generally, the conducted technique presents a systematic approach for holistic analysis of the impacting factors of SD in open pit mines.
Highlights
Nowadays, due to increases in the world population and the growing demand for an increase in the production rate of minerals, industries are necessary
The results showed that this research can be offered unique standards in the sustainable development (SD) impacting factors ultimate pit limit (UPL) design in different metal mines, and the shares of the environmental, economic and social aspects are 26, 38 and 36%, respectively
A general approach was developed for an impact assessment of mining activities on SD by using the fuzzy DEMATEL method
Summary
Due to increases in the world population and the growing demand for an increase in the production rate of minerals, industries are necessary. More than 90 percent of Iran’s mines have been mined by using open pit mining techniques, which have a considerable share in creating jobs, supplying essential raw materials, income distribution, expanding social infrastructures and the economics of the country (Moradi, and Osanloo, 2015; Norouzi Masir et al, 2018) Regardless of all these benefits, mining activities lead to the production of many hazards for the health and safety of mineworkers, damage to the natural environment (e.g. water, air, and soil pollution, land disruption, subsidence), and various social problems (Marker et al, 2005; Owen and Kemp, 2017). In this paper, SD assessment has been used, because it pays attention to SD in mining activities, reduces environmental problems, and has positive social and economic effects (Norouzi Masir et al, 2018; Buchanan and Marques, 2018; Dashwood, 2012)
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