When planning the exploitation of a marble quarry, the final value of the material to be extracted contains a positive term, regarding blocks to be sold at different prices, accoring to their quality, and a negative one, assigned to waste blocks that must be disposed of the vicinity of the quarry. These waste blocks cause a serious environmental damage, entailing high landscape recovery costs, which should be minimised. The method proposed here to approach this problem permits the forecasting, ex ante, of the in situ value of all categories of blocks contained in the geological body where the quarry lies. This in situ value is obtained by combining into a quantitative index a series of observed attributes that govern the quality of the blocks. Once estimated by Geostatistics and validated by expert opinion, the index is a reliable basis for exploitation planning, minimising the negative value of waste blocks that can not be left in place. Two case studies for methodological illustration are presented, regarding marble quarries located in the South of Portugal
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