Mining Infrastructure Research Articles

Towards sustainable construction waste minimization and management in Zambia and beyond

Zambian Construction is one of the fastest growing sectors (increasing at 15.3% pa in 2012) from residential and commercial developments and mining infrastructure. The industry in Zambia, like elsewhere, is composed of many players including designers, contractors, regulators, manufacturers and suppliers of construction materials. However, opportunities for sustainable construction waste minimization and management (WMM) have been minimal.Most research in developing countries has been targeted on Municipal Waste Management rather than Construction and Demolition (C&D) Waste. C&D Waste is generally in form of masonry units, mortar, timber, glass, steel and plastic and most generation is arises from masonry units and mortar. In the developed countries guidelines do exist, supported by regulation and legislation.This paper addresses the status on C&D waste management in Zambia as compared to the rest of the world, mainly through literature review, with a view to recommending strategies for sustainable Waste Minimization and Management. As highlighted by several researchers and institutions, worldwide, WMM requires partnerships of strategies, which covers processes over the entire life cycle of construction infrastructure. The paper highlights some of best practices towards sustainable C&D waste minimization and management elsewhere. Finally, recommendations are made on how to achieve best practice in Zambia, sub-region and beyond.Keywords: Municipal Waste, Construction and Demolition waste, design and construction practices

Evaluation of Impact of Potential Extreme Rainfall Events on Mining in Peru

The impact that climate change may play in the future sustainability of mining projects has become increasingly important for the mining industry and its stakeholders. The most significant areas of concern are mine infrastructure, supply chains, health and safety conditions, environmental management, community relations and exploration. This is particularly relevant to mining in a country as climatically vulnerable as Peru. This study focuses on the identification of mining regions and main commodities in Peru that are potentially vulnerable to future extreme rainfall events associated with climate change. From a mine design and planning perspective, this study is a first step to illustrate the importance of considering the impacts of different climatic scenarios on mining in Peru. Based on HadGEM2-ES global climate model projections, mining regions across Peru were clustered into “super-regions” with differing potentials of extreme rainfall events during the next three decades. Five indices for precipitation extremes were used, and their variations between 1971–2000 and 2015–2034 were computed. Current and future metallic mining projects expected to take place across Peru in the next 30 years were retrieved from a mining database and subsequently exported into a geographical information systems software to represent their location and interpolate the variation for each precipitation extreme index. The results of this study point out at a decreasing trend in rainfall extremes intensity and frequency in regions of southern Peru. For copper projects located in these regions, a decrease in rainfall events could also imply an eventual decrease in total precipitation and consequently a deficit in water availability during the next three decades. Mining regions in central Peru, with significant number of zinc projects, are likely to experience a marked increase in overall annual precipitation, average daily precipitation intensity, consecutive days of precipitation and number of heavy precipitation days. At a lesser extent than in central Peru, gold projects in northern Peru are also likely to experience an overall increase in precipitation extremes. The approach used for this research could be extended to other mining regions around the world with extreme weather events.

Open source data mining infrastructure for exploring and analysing OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap and other Volunteered Geographic Information datasets have been explored in the last years, with the aim of understanding how their meaning is rendered, of assessing their quality, and of understanding the community-driven process that creates and maintains the data. Research mostly focuses either on the data themselves while ignoring the social processes behind, or solely discusses the community-driven process without making sense of the data at a larger scale. A holistic understanding that takes these and other aspects into account is, however, seldom gained. This article describes a server infrastructure to collect and process data about different aspects of OpenStreetMap. The resulting data are offered publicly in a common container format, which fosters the simultaneous examination of different aspects with the aim of gaining a more holistic view and facilitates the results’ reproducibility. As an example of such uses, we discuss the project OSMvis. This project offers a number of visualizations, which use the datasets produced by the server infrastructure to explore and visually analyse different aspects of OpenStreetMap. While the server infrastructure can serve as a blueprint for similar endeavours, the created datasets are of interest themselves too.

A Prognosis Methodology for Underground Infrastructure Damage in Sublevel Cave Mining

In sublevel caving (SLC), the caving of the hangingwall due to ore extraction emphasises placement of the mining infrastructure in the footwall. While the footwall in general is less affected by ground settlement compared to the hangingwall, the changes in stress field from mining are significant. The footwall infrastructure must thus be positioned sufficiently far into the footwall to avoid damage from the mining-induced stress; however, placing the infrastructure farther into the footwall increases costs associated with additional drifting and operational distances. This paper presents a case study in which a robust prognosis tool for predicting infrastructure damage associated with SLC mining is developed. The concept of the proposed methodology was developed for the Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag Kiirunavaara SLC mine. Initial steps are data collection through systematic damage mapping followed by conceptual modelling of the general rock mass response to mining. The results of the conceptual models are used as the basis for refined calibrated models detailing the damage development and failure mechanisms. The main system behaviour, failure mechanism and associated damage evolution are incorporated into a bilinear equation using the studied depth and local ore width as input to estimate the final horizontal damage extent from the footwall contact after mining of any specific level. The proposed relationship accurately replicates the current damage pattern within 40 m for more than 70% of the recorded observations up until current mining. The anticipated future damage extent is also shown to be well correlated with current micro-seismic event locations. The connection between seismic rock mass damage and subsequent infrastructure damage during de-confinement suggests that current seismic records from operations, which currently experience no stability issues, might become important at later mining stages.

Is the long-term sequestration of CO2 in and around deep, abandoned coal mines feasible?

Many of the largest fixed sources of CO2 emissions are major power stations located on or very close to major coalfields. Even when local coal reserves are exhausted, coal- and/or biomass-fired power generation often persists at such sites, as they occupy pivotal positions in the national power grids that developed around them. To date, strategies for CO2 sequestration from such power plants have focused on long-distance transport by pipeline to depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs and similar deep saline aquifers. Yet where abandoned coal mines extend more than about 800 m below ground level, the void space represented by the old mine voids themselves, and roof strata that have been rendered more permeable by void collapse, could represent convenient auxiliary loci for CO2 sequestration. Furthermore, the geochemical nature of coal and coal-bearing strata may offer mechanisms for entrapment of injected CO2 in or on the solid phase that are not available in potential storage zones considered to date. Engineering evaluation of this possibility requires consideration of the likely fate of CO2 in free, adsorbed, dissolved, and mineralized forms, and of the geotechnical integrity of enclosing strata and abandoned mine infrastructure that could serve as seals to trap injected CO2 in place. A protocol for assessing these factors has been developed, based on critical evaluation of mining records, hydrogeological conditions, and geotechnical data, resulting in a quantitative assessment of the capacity for CO2 sequestration represented by deep abandoned coal mine workings. Preliminary application of the decision logic is illustrated for the Daning coal mines in China.

Subsidence prediction method of solid backfilling mining with different filling ratios under thick unconsolidated layers

Solid backfill mining for coal pillar recovery in industrial squares has to ensure that the mine infrastructure, such as the shafts and substations, is not degraded or has its utility impaired by that mining. At the same time, it is important to recover as much coal as possible. As a result, it is necessary to predict mining subsidence during solid backfilling mining of coal pillars in industrial squares and to optimize the design of the working faces. At the Baishan coal mine in Anhiu province, China, there are thick layers of unconsolidated overburden above the coal seam so it is not appropriate to use the surface subsidence prediction method of equivalent mining height to predict subsidence during the mining of the coal pillars there. In order to find a reasonable coal pillar recovery scheme for the Baishan mine, a numerical simulation method is used to determine the relationships between the compression ratio of the backfilling material and the surface subsidence prediction parameters. Research was done to determine the appropriate parameters, and based on the final prediction parameters and taking the mandated protection standards for buildings and structures into account, surface subsidence is predicted and a backfill mining scheme for pillar recovery is proposed. The results show that of the six mining schemes considered, scheme 5 is the best scheme for coal pillar recovery in the industrial square at the Baishan mine. The research results are significant for similar mines with thick unconsolidated overburden anywhere in the world.

Mining drives extensive deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Mining poses significant and potentially underestimated risks to tropical forests worldwide. In Brazil’s Amazon, mining drives deforestation far beyond operational lease boundaries, yet the full extent of these impacts is unknown and thus neglected in environmental licensing. Here we quantify mining-induced deforestation and investigate the aspects of mining operations, which most likely contribute. We find mining significantly increased Amazon forest loss up to 70 km beyond mining lease boundaries, causing 11,670 km2 of deforestation between 2005 and 2015. This extent represents 9% of all Amazon forest loss during this time and 12 times more deforestation than occurred within mining leases alone. Pathways leading to such impacts include mining infrastructure establishment, urban expansion to support a growing workforce, and development of mineral commodity supply chains. Mining-induced deforestation is not unique to Brazil; to mitigate adverse impacts of mining and conserve tropical forests globally, environmental assessments and licensing must considered both on- and off-lease sources of deforestation.

English-Language Documents and Old Trucks: Creating Infrastructure in Nagaland's Coal Mining Villages

ABSTRACTIn Nagaland, state attempts to control coal mining are framed as efforts to stop practices labelled ‘unscientific’ by the government. In this article we explore the ways in which communities create their own mining infrastructure built on networks of relations—materialised in English-language documents—and everyday technology—demonstrated in the prevalence of old trucks and improvised machinery. These objects enable livelihoods and supplementary incomes in this region. At the same time, they are also ways of challenging state attempts to control natural resources and for tribal communities to make claims on territory. We focus on coal mining infrastructure, technology and territorial claims in a frontier described variously as remote, inaccessible and underdeveloped, and explore the ways in which practices considered ‘unscientific’ endure and undergird an alternative system of community natural resource management and exploitation.

Shared‐use mining infrastructure: Why it matters and how to achieve it

AbstractThis article considers the cases for and against ‘open access’ regulation of rail and port logistics infrastructure used by ‘bulk’ mining operations, arguing that host governments should proactively impose and then enforce such regulation in almost all cases. The logistics infrastructure needed for this type of mining activity is of critical importance. The costs and potential inefficiencies involved in duplicating such infrastructure confer a significant competitive advantage on its owner in the absence of effective access regulation. In particular, where a first mover develops an ‘integrated’ project incorporating a mine and associated infrastructure, a failure to impose access regulation discourages third‐party investment in mineral exploration and development in the region serviced by the infrastructure, due to the risk of hold‐up by the first mover. An unregulated first mover can also use its infrastructure advantage to capture the state's share of resource rents from the mineral endowment of the region. Open access regulation further benefits host countries by enabling broad‐based economic development through the shared‐use of mining infrastructure with other sectors (e.g., agribusiness). The article highlights contrasting experience with access regulation in Australia: the Pilbara iron ore region has seen protracted disputes involving mining firms and policy‐makers and very few examples of third‐party access, while in the coal region of central Queensland an extensive multi‐user, multi‐purpose railway network operates independently of mining firms. The authors urge governments in sub‐Saharan Africa (in particular) not to underestimate the internal capacity and other challenges associated with developing and enforcing open access regulation of mining infrastructure in a manner that protects their national interests.

The Significance of Mining Infrastructural Development on South African Economy from 1980-2013: An Econometric Approach

In this present paper we investigate the relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth in South Africa from 1980-2013. The importance of this paper is to examine if there is both short and long run significant relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth in South Africa. The data mining was collected from South African Reserve Bank (SARB) covering the range from 1980-2013 of the paper. Both Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillip Perron (PP) where used for stationarity tests. Johansen Cointegration test is employed in this paper; also Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) is also employed in this paper. In the results we obtained that there is a positive significant relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth. There is also a causal relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth, meaning the development of mining infrastructure does promote economic growth. In conclusion the policy makers should improve private infrastructure which will equip human capital to be more useful in contributing towards knowledge and innovation. This means South African government and mining industry should priorities the development of infrastructure as component that will be sufficient towards economic development.

The Significance of Mining Infrastructural Development on South African Economy from 1980–2013: An Econometric Approach

In this present paper we investigate the relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth in South Africa from 1980-2013. The importance of this paper is to examine if there is both short and long run significant relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth in South Africa. The data mining was collected from South African Reserve Bank (SARB) covering the range from 1980-2013 of the paper. Both Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillip Perron (PP) where used for stationarity tests. Johansen Cointegration test is employed in this paper; also Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) is also employed in this paper. In the results we obtained that there is a positive significant relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth. There is also a causal relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth, meaning the development of mining infrastructure does promote economic growth. In conclusion the policy makers should improve private infrastructure which will equip human capital to be more useful in contributing towards knowledge and innovation. This means South African government and mining industry should priorities the development of infrastructure as component that will be sufficient towards economic development.

Australian uranium industry climate change vulnerability assessment

Australia holds 31% of the global uranium resources and currently supplies 12% of the worldwide market. Based on the expected increase in global energy consumption, the demand for uranium is projected to increase, and Australia is well positioned to ensure it remains a significant supplier in the market. However, due to future climate change, the local uranium industry may be impacted as more intense and more frequent extreme weather events are expected, leading to potential disruption to operations and damage to mining infrastructure. Therefore, Australia’s reputation as a reliable industry supplier may be at risk in the future. This paper conducts a review of the vulnerability of the Australian uranium industry to climate related impacts, based on surveys conducted around currently operating uranium mines. Operational disruptions, loss of revenue and increased costs have all been reported as existing impacts by major climatic events. Survey respondents identified tailings/waste storage facilities, ore extraction, processing, transport within the mine site and maintenance activities as the most affected. Through this research, critical aspects to improve the adaptive capacity of the industry have been revealed.

GitHub API Based QuantNet Mining Infrastructure in R

QuantNet being an online GitHub based organization is an integrated environment consisting of different types of statistics-related documents and program codes called Quantlets. The QuantNet Style Guide and the yamldebugger package allow a standardized audit and validation of YAML annotated software repositories within this organization. The behavior statistics of QuantNet users are measured with Web Metrics from Google Analytics. We show how the search queries obtained from Google’s metrics can be used in the test collections in order to calibrate and evaluate the information retrieval (IR) performance of QuantNet’s search engine called QuantNetXploRer. For that purpose, different text mining (TM) models will be examined by means of the new TManalyzer package. Further, we introduce the Validation Pipeline (Vali-PP) and apply it on the YAML data. Vali-PP is a functional multi-staged instrument for clustering analysis, providing multivariate statistical analysis of the co-occurrence distribution of driving factors of the pipeline. The new package rgithubS, which enables a GitHub wide search for code and repositories using the GitHub Search API and which is an essential element of the QuantNet Mining infrastructure, is briefly presented. The TManalyzer results show that for all considered single term queries the number of true positives is maximal in a latent semantic analysis model configuration (LSA50). The Vali-PP analysis indicates that the optimality of the combination LSA50 and hierarchical clustering (HC) applies to 70 − 90% of the cluster sizes for most of the considered quality indices. Further, we can infer that more accurate and comprehensive metadata increases the clustering quality. Subsequently, the findings of our experimental design are implemented into the QuantNetXploRer. The GitHub API driven QuantNetXploRer can be found and mined under http://www.quantlet.de

A Socio-Ecological Approach to GIS Least-Cost Modelling for Regional Mining Infrastructure Planning: A Case Study from South-East Sulawesi, Indonesia

Regional planning approaches to mining infrastructure aim to reduce the conflict associated with mining operations and existing land uses, such as urban areas and biodiversity conservation, as well as the cumulative impacts that occur offsite. In this paper, we describe a method for conducting Geographical Information System (GIS) least-cost path and least-cost corridor analysis for linear mining infrastructure, such as roads. Least-cost path analysis identifies the optimal pathways between two locations as a function of the cost of traveling through different land use/cover types. In a case study from South-East Sulawesi, Indonesia, we identify potential linear networks for road infrastructure connecting mines, smelters, and ports. The method used interview data from government officials to characterise their orientation (perceived importance and positive/negative attitude) toward the social and environmental factors associated with mining infrastructure. A cost-surface was constructed by integrating spatial layers representing the social and environmental factors to identify areas that should be avoided and areas that were compatible with linear infrastructure using the least-cost path analysis. We compared infrastructure scenario outputs from local and national government officials by the degree of spatial overlap and found broad spatial agreement for infrastructure corridors. We conclude by discussing this approach in relation to the wider social-ecological and mine planning literature and how quantitative approaches can reduce the conflict associated with infrastructure planning.

Rock Engineering Design in Frozen and Thawing Rock: Current Approaches and Future Directions

The purpose of this review is to present the state-of-the-art methods, problems and potential future design techniques used for rock engineering in frozen ground, with particular regard to the design of mine openings in rock masses that may be subject to thawing. The impetus for this work is the recognition that civil and mining infrastructure is extending into such frozen material, and the design procedures currently available may not be optimal. Additionally, civilian infrastructure in frozen ground in alpine regions (e.g. central Europe) is also becoming subject to thawing conditions. In any such scenario, increased heat exchange with an exposed rock mass surface will cause thawing to occur. In general, a rock mass is stronger in frozen conditions than in dry conditions (i.e. without ice or water), but a rock mass will be least strong at the time ice-filled discontinuities are thawing, resulting in a significant shear strength reduction. In this review, we will discuss the various existing design methods in the context of the phenomena involved in the formation of frozen rock and the behaviour of thawing rock. We will show the deficiencies of these methods and highlight potential developments that will lead to future robust design protocols.

Going Fishing: Activism against Deep Ocean Mining, from the Raukūmara Basin to the Bismarck Sea

Corporations and states are positioning the immensely deep waters and undersea lands of the Pacific Ocean as frontiers that are only just becoming known and important through their efforts to extract fossil fuels, copper, gold, and silver, among other materials. Despite these aggressive attempts to territorialize the ocean as a frontier, seabed mining has become an embattled site in the Pacific, where it is opposed by social movements in specific locales and in networks through the ocean and beyond. In this essay, I explore the art and media activism of these struggles, focusing on Greenpeace photographs of a Te Whānau-ā-Apanui fishing boat crossing a seismic survey ship contracted to Petrobras in the Raukūmara Basin, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Hawaiian artist Joy Enomoto's Nautilus the Protector woodcut prints, in which a nautilus battles mining infrastructure in the Bismarck Sea, Papua New Guinea. Against but also far beyond engaging mining, activists express close connections between people and the ocean, including deep waters and lands, countering mining narratives in which such connections are predicated on physically penetrating into and exposing the depths. Through creative, improvised tactics—such as linking fishing to a struggle against fossil fuel extraction, or using woodcut printing, a fast and cheap media form, to animate different imaginaries against a flood of high-tech corporate representations of the ocean—activists find ways to rework conditions of economic disparity and of aggressive exclusion from proposed mining sites.

Application of the Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System for Developing Countries (SIRSDEC) to a case study

A large amount of international public and private not-for-profit organizations strives to enhance the conditions of less developed economies under the flagship of sustainability throughout a wide range of infrastructure projects. However, the results are uncertain. Sustainable development in poorer countries requires effective frameworks to ensure the balanced consideration of social, economic and environmental dimensions. This paper discusses the application of the Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System for Developing Countries (SIRSDEC) to a mining infrastructure project located in Peru, in order to validate the methodology developed for this framework. The opinions returned from a questionnaire addressed to international experts according to the pairwise comparison scale of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method were processed to obtain the weights of the elements forming the decision-making tree of SIRSDEC. The Integrated Value Model for Sustainable Assessment (MIVES) was introduced to assess infrastructure projects through the definition of value functions for each sustainability indicator, which enables the integration of variables measured in different units into a standardized value index. The weights obtained for SIRSDEC reflected the balance of the three pillars of sustainability, with a slight predominance of the social dimension. The case study highlighted the contribution of the new system to identify key sustainability issues which were omitted in the original project and posed several actions to improve community’s perception and facilitate the development of the project.

Support of mining investment choice decisions with the use of multi-criteria method

The article presents the use of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method for the support of decisions regarding the choice of mining investment. The mining investment, as understood in the analysis conducted in the article is an acquisition of a plant mining zinc and lead ore together with the processing plant producing concentrates of these metals as well as the deposits potentially viable for mining. The subject of analysis consisted of 11 polymetallic ore deposits with different degrees of utilization and mining infrastructure which could be a subject of investment activities in Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia.In order to choose the best investment solution, a hierarchic model was built which took into account 5 main criteria and 15 partial criteria. These included in particular quantitative criteria, due to which the degree of subjectivism has been reduced. The main criteria included: geological and mining conditions, technical condition of the mining infrastructure, influence of the conducted mining activity on the environment, capital expenditure for particular stages of the investment and finally – social and political background which described the investment risk.The assessment of influence of the mining plant on the environment was conducted using the influence matrix, so called Leopold's matrix. The method allowed for identifying influences which affected the environment's components and simultaneously permitted to quantify the degree of this influence.For each criterion, accordingly to the AHP method's principles, weights (priorities) have been calculated. The weights were then used for construction of aggregating indicators. The choice of the best investment solution was obtained thanks to the use of an aggregating indicator which is a measure of assessment of particular polymetallic ore deposits. The indicators were the base for creating a rating for the mining objects from the point of view of assessment for the investor's needs.

Airborne EM for mine infrastructure planning

Airborne electromagnetic (AEM) surveys with near-surface vertical resolution provide rapid and comprehensive coverage of a mine site ahead of infrastructure planning. In environments of sufficient electrical conductivity contrast, the data will map variations in the depth to bedrock, providing guidance for expected excavation depths for solid building foundations, or mine pre-strip volumes. Continuous coverage overcomes the severe areal limitation of relying only on drilling and test pits. An AEM survey in northern Finland illustrates the success of this approach for guiding the placement of a mine crusher and related infrastructure. The cost of the EM data collection and interpretation is insignificant in comparison to the US$300 million capital cost of the mine infrastructure. This environment of shallow glacial cover challenges the limits of AEM resolution, yet analysis of subsequently collected three-dimensional (3D) surface seismic data and actual pre-strip excavation depths reinforces the predictive, but qualitative, mapping capability of the AEM. It also highlights the need to tune the modelling via petrophysics for the specific goal of the investigation, and exposes the limitations of visual drill core logging.

Rare Earth Deposits of the Murmansk Region, Russia—A Review

This paper reviews the available information on the geology, mineralogy, and resources of the significant rare earth element (REE) deposits and occurrences in the Murmansk Region, northwest Russia. The region has one of the largest endowments of REE in the world, primarily the light REE (LREE); however, most of the deposits are of potential economic interest for the REE, only as by-products of other mining activity, because of the relatively low REE grade. The measured and indicated REE2O3 resources of all deposits in the region total 22.4, and 36.2 million tonnes, respectively. The most important resources occur in (1) the currently mined Khibiny titanite-apatite deposits, and (2) the Lovozero loparite-eudialyte deposit. The Kovdor baddeleyite-apatite-magnetite deposit is a potentially important resource of scandium. These deposits all have polymetallic ores, i.e., REE would be a by-product of P, Ti, and Al mining at Khibiny, Fe, Zr, Ta, and Nb mining at Lovozero, and Fe and Ti mining at Afrikanda. The Keivy block has potential for heavy REE exploitation in the peralkaline granite-hosted Yumperuaiv and Large Pedestal Zr-REE deposits and the nepheline syenite-hosted Sakharyok Zr-REE deposit. With the exception of the Afrikanda perovskite-magnetite deposit (LREE in perovskite) and the Kovdor baddeleyite-apatite-magnetite deposit (scandium in baddelyite), carbonatite-bearing complexes of the Murmansk Region appear to have limited potential for REE by-products. The sound transport, energy, and mining infrastructure of the region are important factors that will help ensure future production of the REE.