Water resources management and mining industry in arid and semi-arid regions

In general, modern mining practice and strict application of environmental regulations have limited the negative impacts of the past that still affect many historic mining districts in the world.. However, increasing water demand from the own mining industry and competing users, mainly from commercial agriculture, requires the development of strategies and a more integrated approach to water catchment management, as well as the use and application of new technologies for the sustainable management of them with mining activities located in arid and semiarid regions of the world. The legal access (water rights) to use water is a fundamental aspect of water catchment management, and the purpose of this use (agriculture, domestic, industrial, etc.) is generally defined along with any limitations on the use. In the case of arid and semiarid zones, the rainfall is often limited to one or two months of the year, resulting in very intense storms with strong erosive powers. The short but severe storm rainfall events may cause great erosion, for example in minining areas where vegetation has been removed exposing the soils, giving rise to severe sedimentation problems in adjacent areas. These storms also provide enough water lead to acid drainage generation in the exposed rock in mining areas. Due to the fact that a basic consideration is the development of guidelines for water resources management at catchment level, in the same way as the management of mining impacts, a number of guidelines have been published in some countries to help mining companies and government agencies to predict and avoid these problems. A review of the past and current practices in arid and semiarid zones of the planet with significant mining industry is revised in this paper.

Keywords:

Water management , arid zones , mining , acid drainage , sustainability