Tailings Dams Management for the Twenty-First Century

What Mining Companies need to know and do to thrive in our complex World

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This book provides a comprehensive approach to address the need for improvements in the design of tailings dams, its management and the regulation of tailings management facilities to reduce, and eventually eliminate, the risks of failure of existing and future facilities. The scope of the challenge is well documented in the report released in October 2017 in Geneva by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and GRID Arendal entitled “Mine Tailings Storage: Safety Is No Accident”. The UNEP report recommends that “Regulators, industry and communities should adopt a shared zero-failure objective to tailings storage facilities…” and has identified many areas where further improvements are required to meet this objective. In keeping with this objective, we believe that the application of cutting-edge risk assessment methodologies and risk management practices can contribute to the significant reduction and eventual elimination of dam failures through Risk Informed Decision Making. Thus the primary purpose of this book is to identify and describe those risk assessment approaches and risk management practices that must be implemented in order to develop a path forward to reach societally acceptable tailings dam risks.