Investigation of environmental impacts of tailings dams

Mining has been one of the key sectors for industrialisation of the world for centuries. As the mining activities enlarge, the amount of waste materials readily increases. Storage of waste materials or tailings disposal has become a serious matter for the mining industry due to its enlargement especially for the last 30 years. During the beneficiation of valuable metals and industrial minerals from their ores, large volumes of waste materials or tailings may be produced and these tailings may be harmful to the environment. It is now necessary to design and build tailings dams to store these waste materials for the modern mining industry. In this paper, the tailings dams and their possible environmental impacts are investigated by considering the design parameters, the possible dam failures and the stabilisation of the waste materials.