An assessment of the potential pollution risk of tailings dumps on the environment using multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA).
| dc.contributor.author | Munanku, Teclah | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-07-18T08:38:40Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-07-18T08:38:40Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022 | |
| dc.description | Thesis of Master of Science in Sustainable Mineral Resource Development. | |
| dc.description.abstract | The mining industry is one of the key economic drivers in Zambia and has tremendously grown since its genesis in the early 1900’s. Zambia is one of the largest copper producers in Africa and the world and this translates to thousands of tonnes of mining waste accumulated over the years. Mine tailings have a huge footprint over the environment and can have serious consequences that cannot be reversed during mining and long after mining has ceased. This has resulted into over 2000 dumps lying around the surface on the Copperbelt Province and other provinces. Despite several studies being done around tailing dumps, impact assessments of their risk have been a challenge. This challenge arises mainly from the lack of common criteria for risks to objects of environmental protection as well as the lack of time frames within which these criteria are evaluated and this has made it difficult to conduct impact assessment studies of the mine tailing dumps. This research assessed the potential pollution risk of tailings dumps using multi-criteria decision analysis, in this case, the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method was applied to assess which dump has a higher potential pollution risk to the environment. AHP is a widely used assessment method and is based on the premise that decision-making related to complicated problems can be handled using a hierarchical structure that transforms complexity into a simple and comprehensible problem. Appropriate criteria went into the development of a framework for multicriteria decision support analysis and this enabled the determination of the potential pollution risk to the environment from the three tailings dumps selected. The tailings dumps were selected based on the criteria of age, working status of mine and more critically the availability of data needed to carry out the assessment on these dumps. The tailing dumps selected included one from a legacy mine (Kabwe Lead Mine, Kabwe) which is the oldest, one from a relatively older working mine (Mopani Copper Mine, Kitwe) and one from a relatively younger working mine (Lumwana Copper Mine, Mwinilunga). Criteria with five indicators was developed, the first being physical properties. This indicator considered three factors, size of the tailings dumps in hectares, particle size of dump material and consolidation status of dump. The second indicator was chemical properties that was computed as an index of contamination. The third indicator is properties of the environment around the dump, this considered four factors; the lithology underlying the dump area, the depth of the water table, the distance to the nearest surface water body, and the distance to the nearest anthropogenic facility. The fourth indicator was climatic factors around the dump area and focuses on the amount of rainfall received in the area. The fifth indicator was protective structures, this considered dust suppression at the site by means of tree cover. Results of the research revealed that Kabwe mine tailings dump had the highest pollution potential followed by the Lumwana mine tailings dump then Mopani mine tailings dump (TD15A) in Kitwe. The results of the assessment show a successful model for decision making. When compared against a severity of risk scale, the Mopani Mine tailings dump in Kitwe had a low risk while the Kabwe and Lumwana mine tailings had a medium risk. Although this study was conducted using three tailings dumps, the criteria developed can be used to guide assessments of potential pollution risk of any other tailings dump in Zambia. The developed pollution risk criteria were applied to Musina Copper Mine tailings in South Africa where an assessment was previously conducted using a different approach for comparison. The Musina tailings dump had a potential pollution risk score of 0.5 and thus of medium risk which was in agreement with previous studies hence validating the approach. The indicators used thus capture critical aspects related to physical and chemical properties of mine dumps in data scarce environmental settings. Using the developed tool in assessing the potential pollution risk before mining projects commence will consequently lead to the sustainable management of these dumps even before mining commences by taking deliberate steps to prevent pollution with the guidance of the criteria in the decision-making tool developed. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://dspace.unza.zm/handle/123456789/9287 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | The University of Zambia | |
| dc.title | An assessment of the potential pollution risk of tailings dumps on the environment using multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA). | |
| dc.type | Thesis |