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  • Review Article
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Tailings storage facilities, failures and disaster risk

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 5, pages 612–630 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Mining generates 13 billion tonnes per year of potentially toxic wet slurry waste, called tailings, commonly deposited in tailings storage facilities (TSF). Since 1915, 257 TSF failures have occurred, releasing a total of ~250 million m3 of tailings, destroying areas up to ~5,000 km2, killing an estimated 2,650 people and impacting ~317,000 people through displacement, property damage, and risks to livelihoods and health. In this Review, we provide an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the causes, effects and response to TSF failures, applying a disaster risk reduction framework. TSF failures can occur owing to earthquakes, overtopping, weak foundations and liquefaction, among other mechanisms. The severities and volumes of TSF failures have increased since the year 2000, owing to increasing mine waste generation from the exploitation of larger, lower-grade deposits. Despite the increasingly severe impacts, the mining industry has been hesitant to use the term ‘disaster’ to analyse TSF failure, presumably to avoid liability. TSF failures should be considered as disasters when they cause severe disruption to the functioning of ecological and social systems. Future research should build on attempts to link tailings facility locations to situated risk factors by improving spatial and time series analysis, reducing reliance on corporate disclosures, and increasing the visibility of priority locations and patterns of concern.

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Fig. 1: Effects of TSF failures and disasters, and other mining activities on river catchments.
Fig. 2: Classification of tailings storage facilities (TSFs).
Fig. 3: Tailings storage facility (TSF) failure mechanisms.
Fig. 4: Impacts of tailings storage facility (TSF) failures and other mining activities.
Fig. 5: Catchment impacts and transformation after the 1998 Aznalcóllar TSF failure, Spain.
Fig. 6: Distribution and frequency of TSFs and TSF failures.

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Acknowledgements

The contribution of D.K. was in part supported by the Australian Research Council grant LP200301160. The authors are grateful to A. Amanda Andrade for her feedback on an early draft of the manuscript. K.A.H.-E., D.K., D.M.F. and E.M. acknowledge the QUEX Institute (https://www.exeter.ac.uk/global/quex/) for helping to facilitate our collaboration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Camborne School of Mines and Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK

    Karen A. Hudson-Edwards & Eva Marquis

  2. Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

    Deanna Kemp

  3. Centre for Development Support, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

    Deanna Kemp & John R. Owen

  4. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Luis Alberto Torres-Cruz

  5. Lincoln Centre for Water and Planetary Health, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK

    Mark G. Macklin & Christopher J. Thomas

  6. Innovative River Solutions, Institute of Agriculture and Environment, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

    Mark G. Macklin

  7. Centre for the Study of the Inland, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Mark G. Macklin

  8. College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Fiji National University, Nausori, Fiji

    Mark G. Macklin & Daniel M. Franks

  9. Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK

    Paul A. Brewer

  10. Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

    Daniel M. Franks

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K.A.H.-E wrote and edited the article. All authors contributed to all aspects of the article.

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Glossary

Ash

The powdery inorganic waste material remaining after the combustion of mineral materials.

Best available practice

(BAP). Best available practices for tailings storage facilities, which include monitoring of physical mechanisms and human factors that could result in tailings storage facility failures.

Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management

(GISTM). The global standard developed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) and Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2020 that requires operators to be responsible for, and prioritize the safety of, TSF throughout its life cycle.

Slags

The glassy siliceous waste materials remaining after the smelting of metal ores.

Tailings

Finely crushed rock and processing fluids left over after the economic materials of the mined resource have been extracted; they can contain potentially toxic, corrosive and radioactive components.

Tailings dams

TSF barriers constructed to hold back the tailings; it is the part of the TSF that has the highest tendency to fail.

Tailings storage facility

(TSF). Engineered facility designed to contain tailings; it can be an open pit, a dammed impoundment or an underground void.

TSF disasters

TSF failures that cause severe impacts and result in serious disruption to social, environmental and economic systems.

TSF failures

Failures of the dam or other part of the storage facility designed to hold back the tailings in the TSF.

Waste rock

Mined rock that does not contain ore minerals at sufficient grades to be economic and does not undergo mineral processing.

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Hudson-Edwards, K.A., Kemp, D., Torres-Cruz, L.A. et al. Tailings storage facilities, failures and disaster risk. Nat Rev Earth Environ 5, 612–630 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00576-4

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