When planning the exploitation of a marblequarry, the final value of the material to be extracted contains apositive term, regarding blocks to be sold at different prices,according to their quality, and a negative one, assigned to wasteblocks that must be disposed of the vicinity of the quarry. Thesewaste blocks cause a serious environmental damage, entailinghigh landscape recovery costs, which should be minimised. Themethod proposed here to approach this problem permits theforecasting, ex ante, of the in situ value of all categories ofblocks contained in the geological body where the quarry lies.This in situ value is obtained by combining into a quantitativeindex a series of observed attributes that govern the quality ofthe blocks. Once estimated by Geostatistics and validated byexpert opinion, the index is a reliable basis for exploitationplanning, minimising the negative value of waste blocks that cannot be left in place. Two case studies for methodologicalillustration are presented, regarding marble quarries located inthe South of Portugal.
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