The mining industry has never been more scrutinised, with stakeholders calling on the sector to operate more responsibly. It’s a matter of regulation, social trust and economic viability, with investors now leaving irresponsible miners out in the cold. The environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement is in full force, and wise mining companies are establishing dedicated divisions to improve their accountability and identify ESG opportunities.
One of these opportunities is a miner’s social license to operate, where companies are becoming more vigilant in terms of monitoring and improving their relationships with local communities to improve connections and reputations.
To support miners on this journey, SRK Consulting has established its Project 4D data visualisation tool, which models potential environmental and safety risks on a mine site.
The tool projects data sets onto a 3D printed topography of a mine site and its surrounding environment, forecasting how potential risks such as floods, dam breaches or erosion could eventuate based on a mine’s unique topography.
For example, how quickly will floodwaters move given a site’s terrain? And how will this affect local communities adjacent to the mine?
With the help of Project 4D, communities can accurately understand the pace and nature of potential water run-off from a neighbouring mine and develop clear action plans if floods occur.
Until now, outputs such as this have typically been limited to static images on a PDF.
“Project 4D extracts more information from modelling than typical outputs,” SRK senior civil engineer Heather Thomson told Australian Mining.
“We run dam breach models to simulate how tailings would flow out of a failing dam, and then typically extract particular data that a client might be interested in and present that in a report.
“With Project 4D, we can now clearly visualise the evolution of the dam breach over time rather than a simple static image.”
These outputs can then be clearly communicated with stakeholders.
“The Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM) calls it ‘meaningful engagement’,” Thomson said.
“Engagement needs to be conducted in a way that everyone can understand – a mining company can’t just show stakeholders a technical report and expect them to know what they’re talking about.
“And with one of the core components of the GISTM being public disclosure, it’s not a guideline but a requirement that mining companies must disclose certain information.”
The GISTM was established in August 2020 following the Brumadinho dam failure that devastated communities adjacent to the Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine in Brazil.
Members of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) have until August this year to conform to the GISTM for tailings facilities with ‘extreme’ or ‘very high’ potential consequences. All other tailings facilities have until 2025 to conform.
Project 4D can help with GISTM compliance, enabling companies to visualise their tailings landscape and clearly and accurately communicate this information with their stakeholders.
Thomson explained the inspiration for Project 4D in more detail.
“Project 4D was just going to be something fun that we could take to conferences and have in our office to project multidisciplinary data sets, such as water, tailings, geotechnical data, closure data or environmental data,” she said. “Anything we could come up with, we could present on Project 4D.
“But after we got it up and running, everyone we’ve shown it to has come up with new data sets that can be added to it.
“So what started as a fun, engaging tool for conferences has become quite a powerful solution.”
One SRK client suggested Project 4D could be used for emergency response planning, while tailings deposition modelling has also been suggested as an idea. Thomson’s colleague and Project 4D partner Jason Beltran is harnessing the technology for mine closure modelling.
The beauty of Project 4D is that it can be easily adapted to a range of mining applications.
“As long as you have the data set, you can project anything. And there’s potential to further extend the solution,” Thomson said. “Someone had the idea that project deliverables should come with a Project 4D file that you can plug into your model, which could be accessed on your computer or via an app to enable you to see the outcomes of your study.”
Project 4D may not only be the future of risk management and mine planning, but also the future of ESG and achieving social harmony with stakeholders.
It’s a simple, easy-to-understand tool with the potential to grow and evolve with the companies that use it, supporting smarter and more proactive mining operations in the process.
This feature appeared in the July 2023 issue of Australian Mining.
