The article highlights the importance of building and sharing diverse knowledge about the disaster risk of tailings dams.
There have been 63 notable tailings dam failures between 1990 and 2017, out of which 5 to 6 incidents have been reported every year thereafter bringing damages to the environment and a death toll of over 2375 between the years 1961 to 2019.
The article shows the disaster risk potential of existing tailings dams worldwide through applicating the methodology found. The proposed methodology evaluates risks of tailings dam through analyzing external environmental vulnerabilities. Using ESG indicators related to topography, seismicity, and hydrological factors on a sample of 328 projects, it highlighted 55 high-risk projects. Spatial analysis identified that all these mines were within a 5km radius of water streams and that 33 had communities further downstream at an average distance of 3.2km from them, bringing in real disaster risks. The aim of the article is to describe a method for the assessment of ESG indicators regarding disaster risk in tailings dams. The described method screens the risk through eight categories: waste, water, biodiversity, land uses, indigenous peoples' lands, social vulnerability, political fragility, and approval and permitting.
The article argues that priority should be given to assessing and communicating 'situated' disaster risk, i.e. the combined risk of a hazard-bearing structure located in a local context with inherent vulnerabilities. The need to establish and distribute a holistic risk approach for tailings dam breach disasters is stressed in the article. The article thus argues that it is essential to draw specific risk assessment and risk communication out from a broader context.
