Ranking the Hazards of the Abandoned Franke Gold Mine Using an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

摘要

Most abandoned mine sites in developing countries pose serious environmental hazards and public health and safety concerns. For most of these mines, there is limited information about the nature and extent of environmental and physical hazards they present and the effect they have on the nearby communities. South Africa has a large number of abandoned mines which the cost of rehabilitating them is frighteningly high. Moreover, the resources needed to compile a comprehensive inventory of these mines and to carry out their rehabilitation are limited and/or not available. The main aim of this work was to conduct site characterization and ranking of the environmental and physical hazards of abandoned Franke Gold Mine in the Giyani Greenstone Belt. This was done to set rehabilitation priorities for the hazardous features and areas of the mine. The approach used includes identification and assessment of the features and areas that pose environmental and physical risks and ranking of these hazards of the mine using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The results of the study show that the open surface excavations are the predominant hazardous features followed by spoil dumps, opened shaft, dilapidated buildings, paved grounds, and steel packs. The ranking of the hazards using the AHP provided a strong scientific basis for prioritization of future efforts of dealing with the problems at the mine site. It is suggested that rehabilitation of the abandoned Franke Mine be conducted in such a manner that priority is given to the extremely hazardous open excavations and then to relatively less hazardous spoil dumps, old shafts, dilapidated buildings and lastly the least hazardous steel packs and cemented grounds.