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a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 29 October 2009
Received in revised form
10 May 2010
Accepted 2 June 2010
Available online 13 July 2010
A procedure to evaluate mine rehabilitation practices during the operational phase was developed and
validated. It is based on a comparison of actually observed or documented practices with internationally
recommended best practices (BP). A set of 150 BP statements was derived from international guides in
order to establish the benchmark. The statements are arranged in six rehabilitation programs under
three categories: (1) planning (2) operational and (3) management, corresponding to the adoption of the
plan-do-check-act management systems model to mine rehabilitation. The procedure consists of (i)
performing technical inspections guided by a series of eld forms containing BP statements; (ii) classifying evidences in ve categories; and (iii) calculating conformity indexes and levels. For testing and
calibration purposes, the procedure was applied to nine limestone quarries and conformity indexes were
calculated for the rehabilitation programs in each quarry. Most quarries featured poor planning practices,
operational practices reached high conformity levels in 50% of the cases and management practices
scored moderate conformity. Despite all quarries being ISO 14001 certied, their management systems
pay low attention to issues pertaining to land rehabilitation and biodiversity. The best results were
achieved by a quarry whose expansion was recently submitted to the environmental impact assessment
process, suggesting that public scrutiny may play a positive role in enhancing rehabilitation practices.
Conformity indexes and levels can be used to chart the evolution of rehabilitation practices at regular
intervals, to establish corporate goals and for communication with stakeholders.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Mine rehabilitation
Best practice
Assessment
Limestone
Cement
Mining
Quarrying
Karst
ISO 14001
1. Introduction
Land rehabilitation is an essential part of mining and quarrying,
aiming at making disturbed areas suitable for new sustainable land
uses. Mining is increasingly viewed as a temporary form of land use
whose end of life is subject to careful planning. Hence, mine
planning should fully consider future land use options, allowing for
extractive activities to be carried on balancing the optimal rate and
the maximum environmentally and socially feasible ore or rock
extraction with the intended post-mining land use.
Extensive research has been conducted worldwide on several
aspects of mined land rehabilitation. There are recommended
practices for soil management, erosion control, slope stabilization,
species selection, seed collection, nursery establishment and
maintenance, seeding and planting strategies and techniques, weed
control, fauna attraction and other aspects of rehabilitation
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10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0,000
aggregates
coal
limestone
iron ore
Fig. 1. World output of major minerals. Sources: USGS (2009) for iron ore, cement and
lime, Hetherington (2007) for coal, Langer (2006) for aggregates. Limestone output
estimated by authors from cement and lime outputs; limestone used as crushed stone
is not considered in this estimate and is accrued as aggregate.
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Table 1
Structure of eld forms and summary of best practice statements.
Type of rehabilitation
practice
Rehabilitation program
Planning practices
Planning
Rehabilitation planning
Sub-total
Operational practices
Sub-total
Managerial practices
Soil management
Landform stabilization
Water management
Landform stabilization:
rock face stability
Landform stabilization:
waste rock pile stability
Water resources protection
Vegetation management
Vegetation management
Management of the
rehabilitation process
Management of the
rehabilitation process
Sub-total
Total
Verbal evidence (I): obtained by interviews, forms the least reliable category because the interviewee may say only what he or
she thinks the assessor would like to hear or even get confused;
this kind of information should be treated with caution, and other
(visual or documental) evidences should be found for conrmation; double-checking with other interviewees is a commonly
recommended practice for conducting interviews.
Number of best
practice statements
11
3
2
5
5
2
5
4
2
35
6
5
4
4
2
3
7
7
12
Surface water
Underground water
Vegetation removal
Visual impact minimization
Revegetation
11
5
7
3
14
Standardization of procedures
Human resources
Suppliers capacity-building
Environmental monitoring
Operational maintenance
Quality assurance/quality control
96
1
1
1
6
8
4
19
150
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Dat e:
VE (visual evidence),
DE (documental evidence),
Benchmarking
I (verbal evidence).
Classificat
ion
Types of
evidence
Notes
Classificat
ion
Benchmarking
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Types of
evidence
Notes
Fig. 3. (continued).
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Request of relevant
documents
Document analysis
Technical inspection
scheduling
Opening meeting
Technical inspection
Rehabilitation or Closure
Plan, Environmental Impact
Study, licenses and permits,
maps, aerial photos and
other technical documents
Document review,
collection of documental
evidence, field forms filling
in, identification of gaps
Presentation of work
objectives and inspection
goals and time table
Closing meeting
Data treatment
Preparation of draft
report
Analysis and
recommendations
Review by mine
management
Table 2
Distribution of best practices statements according to their hierarchy.
Hierarchy
Number of statements
Essential practices
Important practices
Accessory practices
25 (16.7%)
41 (27.3%)
84 (56%)
PESS PL PNS
PIMP PNS
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
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Table 3
Correspondence between conformity level and index.
conformity level
description
conformity index
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Table 4
Conformity indexes and levels obtained for the evaluated quarries.
quarry
1 (1)
2 (1)
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
(1)
year
started
1947/1990
1949/2005
1977
1937
1936
1936
1936
1982
1982
ISO
practices
14001
operational
managecertifi- planning
soil
landform
water
vegetation
ment
management stabilization management management
ed?
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
0.54
0.78
0.24
0.07
0.31
0.28
0.29
0.25
0.20
0.75
0.80
0.65
0.18
1
0.72
0.85
0.78
0.80
0.80
0.54
0.52
0.16
1
1
1
0.32
0.30
0.82
0.42
0.51
0.45
0.80
1
0.61
0.80
0.75
0.52
0.80
0.06
0
0
0
0
0.80
0.80
0.54
0.80
0.57
0.57
0.57
0.57
0.57
0.60
0.55
Quarries 1 and 2 were expanded respectively in 1990 and 2005, having prepared an environmental impact study.
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