Reviewing the Impact Produced In Air Quality Due To Infrastructure Decommissioning and Mine Closure Activities

摘要

The environmental assessment of a development project is the process of identifying, predicting andevaluating potential impacts on the environment due to the planned activities for the entire projectlifecycle: construction, operation, closure and post-closure. Accurate identification of the likelyenvironmental impacts is necessary to define measures to mitigate or compensate the relevantimpacts, if it does apply.The appropriate evaluation of potential impacts on the environment and human well-being isparticularly relevant in the mining industry. This sector is also characterized by the long durabilityof its projects and numerous modifications, resulting in the need to conduct new environmentalassessments throughout its life cycle.In Chile, modifications or additions of new facilities to a mining project are evaluated through theEnvironmental Impact Assessment System (SEIA). Usually, this evaluation focuses exclusively on thepotential impact caused by the new facilities or modifications in the project phase which representsthe worst-case scenario, while it excludes the combined evaluation of the previously evaluatedfacilities for the other phases.