Tailings Dam Management for the Twenty-First Century: What Mining Companies Need to Know and Do to Thrive in Our Complex World

Description

This book presents a comprehensive approach to address the need to improve the design of tailings dams, their management and the regulation of tailings management facilities to reduce, and eventually eliminate, the risk of such facilities failing. The scope of the challenge is well documented in the report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and GRID Arendal entitled “Mine Tailings Storage: Safety Is No Accident,” which was released in October 2017. The report recommends that “Regulators, industry and communities should adopt a shared, zero-failure objective to tailings storage facilities…” and identifies several areas where further improvements are required. In this context, the application of cutting-edge risk-assessment methodologies and risk-management practices can contribute to a significant reduction and eventual elimination of dam failures through Risk Informed Decision Making. As such, the book focuses on identifying and describing the risk-assessment approaches and risk-management practices that need to be implemented in order to develop a way forward to achieve socially acceptable levels of tailings dam risk. Front Matter ....Pages i-xx Introduction (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 1-9 Front Matter ....Pages 11-11 Two Recent Catastrophic Tailings Dams Accidents (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 13-22 Examples of Recent Catastrophic Hydro-Dam Accidents (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 23-33 Historic Failures “Statistics” (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 35-51 What the Public Wants; Public Reactions (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 53-64 Justifying the Need for New Approaches (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 65-80 Front Matter ....Pages 81-81 Let’s Start with Some Serious “Do Nots”! (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 83-102 System Definition (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 103-116 Hazard Identification (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 117-138 Defining Probabilities of Events (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 139-151 Dam Stability Failures (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 153-167 Consequences (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 169-184 Tolerance and Acceptability (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 185-197 Risk Assessment for the Twenty-First Century (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 199-215 Front Matter ....Pages 217-217 Risk-Informed Decision Making (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 219-265 One Final Word (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 267-268 Path Forward (Franco Oboni, Cesar Oboni)....Pages 269-271 Back Matter ....Pages 273-278