Quantitative risk-based approach for improving water quality management in mining

The potential environmental threats posed by freshwater withdrawal and mine water discharge are some of the main drivers for the mining industry to improve water management. The use of multiple sources of water supply and introducing water reuse into the mine site water system have been part of the...

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Main Authors: Liu, W., Moran, Chris, Vink, S.
Format: Journal Article
Published: American Chemical Society 2011
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13722
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author Liu, W.
Moran, Chris
Vink, S.
author_facet Liu, W.
Moran, Chris
Vink, S.
author_sort Liu, W.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The potential environmental threats posed by freshwater withdrawal and mine water discharge are some of the main drivers for the mining industry to improve water management. The use of multiple sources of water supply and introducing water reuse into the mine site water system have been part of the operating philosophies employed by the mining industry to realize these improvements. However, a barrier to implementation of such good water management practices is concomitant water quality variation and the resulting impacts on the efficiency of mineral separation processes, and an increased environmental consequence of noncompliant discharge events. There is an increasing appreciation that conservative water management practices, production efficiency, and environmental consequences are intimately linked through the site water system. It is therefore essential to consider water management decisions and their impacts as an integrated system as opposed to dealing with each impact separately. This paper proposes an approach that could assist mine sites to manage water quality issues in a systematic manner at the system level. This approach can quantitatively forecast the risk related with water quality and evaluate the effectiveness of management strategies in mitigating the risk by quantifying implications for production and hence economic viability. © 2011 American Chemical Society.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-137222017-09-13T15:01:41Z Quantitative risk-based approach for improving water quality management in mining Liu, W. Moran, Chris Vink, S. The potential environmental threats posed by freshwater withdrawal and mine water discharge are some of the main drivers for the mining industry to improve water management. The use of multiple sources of water supply and introducing water reuse into the mine site water system have been part of the operating philosophies employed by the mining industry to realize these improvements. However, a barrier to implementation of such good water management practices is concomitant water quality variation and the resulting impacts on the efficiency of mineral separation processes, and an increased environmental consequence of noncompliant discharge events. There is an increasing appreciation that conservative water management practices, production efficiency, and environmental consequences are intimately linked through the site water system. It is therefore essential to consider water management decisions and their impacts as an integrated system as opposed to dealing with each impact separately. This paper proposes an approach that could assist mine sites to manage water quality issues in a systematic manner at the system level. This approach can quantitatively forecast the risk related with water quality and evaluate the effectiveness of management strategies in mitigating the risk by quantifying implications for production and hence economic viability. © 2011 American Chemical Society. 2011 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13722 10.1021/es201876c American Chemical Society restricted
spellingShingle Liu, W.
Moran, Chris
Vink, S.
Quantitative risk-based approach for improving water quality management in mining
title Quantitative risk-based approach for improving water quality management in mining
title_full Quantitative risk-based approach for improving water quality management in mining
title_fullStr Quantitative risk-based approach for improving water quality management in mining
title_full_unstemmed Quantitative risk-based approach for improving water quality management in mining
title_short Quantitative risk-based approach for improving water quality management in mining
title_sort quantitative risk-based approach for improving water quality management in mining
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13722