An integrated methodology for risk assessment of mining projects at different spatial scales

Résumé En

Despite its contribution to economic development, mining may be the source and target of risks of different nature and the origin of social conflicts at the territory level. However, the uniqueness of mining activities and their inherently interdisciplinary character are often not taken into consideration in risk analysis. As a matter of fact, risk management process can't be focused on the mining project alone but it needs to be informed by a holistic understanding of the system dynamics at a much larger spatial scale. This paper aims to present a decision-making support methodology for a more efficient and systematic risk assessment of mining projects at the territory scale. The integrative character of the methodology is provided by the fact that it is multi-scale (adapted to the desired spatial scale, to the level of available information and to the desired level of detail), multi-perspective (it includes in every step the diversity of stakeholders) and dynamic (adapted to the phases of the project and allows the simulation of future scenarios). Moreover, the proposed methodology takes into account the different nature of risks as well as the peculiarities of the exploitation techniques used. The overview of a first application of the methodology to a specific case-study, related to gold mining in French Guiana will be presented as well.