A Sustainability Approach to Optimize the Closure of Continuous Surface Lignite Mines

Mine closure is a crucial procedure of every mining operation and should be planned from the early beginning of the mine life cycle to ensure sustainable mining and post-mining operations. In this framework, the sustainability goals require an integrated mine planning of all mining stages, from the exploration to the environmental reclamation of mining works and the post-mining land uses. Furthermore, considering the last stages of a mining project, knowledge obtained from the mine life cycle and its management is essential for providing information on all aspects of closure planning and execution. Therefore, the closure objectives should be defined early, during the initial stages of a well-organized closure plan, and incorporated into the relative mine planning stage. In the present study, a sustainable closure mine approach is investigated for the continuous surface lignite mines by considering the optimization of the lignite production in combination with the environmental reclamation of mining areas and the spatial planning of post-mining land uses and by evaluating socio-economic factors related to the mining operations. In the optimization context, emphasis was placed on the viable development of infrastructure to ensure sustainability. The approach was based on a statistical analysis regarding the correlation of social and economic indicators with lignite production and a dynamic optimization model for the remaining surface mining operations. More specifically, population, employment, gross domestic product, and gross added value are some of the social factors that were investigated for the broader area of the Ptolemais mines in Western Macedonia, Greece. The closure objectives include the identification of the potential risks and opportunities, the designing of closure activities, the estimation of closure costs, the evaluation of the successful closure activities against closure objectives, as well as the identification of the necessary supporting actions for the mine closure and post-mining land uses.