Management of Mining Hazard Monitoring

Abstract

The natural hazards are an inherent part of any mining activity. They concern both, underground and open-pit methods. The hazards cause not only the delay against the mining operational plans but can also be a source of equipment damage and are often very likely to create a significant risk to health and safety of employees. In order to prevent natural hazard related incidents and to control their levels, some special monitoring systems are introduced in mining operations. They can be permanent, periodic or short-term. The mentioned systems deliver actual and live data about the rock mass condition, show the parameters representing the natural hazards and are in fact the only method which can verify the design assumptions used for evaluating the stability of underground roadways, their support, pillars stability or slope stability in open pit mines. It should also be highlighted that described monitoring systems should be always adjusted accordingly to changing mining and geological conditions taking also into account advancing mining works. This paper presents a discussion concerning certain guidelines for monitoring, predicting and controlling of the mining hazards in mining. It includes both; the hazards called by Ministry of Environment of Poland as “qualified mining hazards” in its ordinance as well “unqualified mining hazards” defined in the same document. The latter include for example roof fall hazard often occurring in Polish copper mines. Despite the mining regulations generally pointing the natural and mining factors to be controlled for the hazard risk assessment; the choice of equipment, adjustment of its technical parameters and design of the monitoring system itself, are left to the supervisory level personnel in the mine, primarily the Mine Manager. Such approach requires from mining engineers to properly manage the monitoring systems and learn to organize them in the best possible manner. Hence, the paper presents a flowchart showing a sequence of tasks to be introduced and implemented for an effective monitoring system. Author believes that only by having the system implemented correctly, it is possible to assess the risks and select the proper methods to reduce the hazards.