Groundwater monitoring should warn us before the damage is done
A mine can have years of groundwater data, a network of monitoring boreholes and water quality records, yet still face the basic question of whether that network could detect a…
Helping mines get results from water improvements
South African mines operate under constrained conditions. With a notable slowdown in new discoveries since the 1990s, they have become experts at working with dispersed and mixed-grade deposits. They continue…
Shifting mine water from a removal problem to a resource stream
Mining is incredibly water-intensive, a dependency that collides with constrained supply and rising costs. Almost two-thirds of mines face serious water-related risks, according to the International Council on Mining and…
How to get the best results from water equipment rentals for mines
An excessively wet season. A major pump breakdown. An unexpected pocket of groundwater. Mines plan for water management and outfit their sites appropriately. But water conditions can vary significantly over…
From ‘black box’ to ‘blue box’ in tailings storage facility water management
In many mine-wide water balances, the tailings storage facility (TSF) still appears as a single line item: a convenient ‘black box’ where water goes in, something comes out and the…