Risk management for mine closure: A cloud model and hybrid semi-quantitative decision method

Mine closure is associated with many negative impacts on society and the environment. If these effects are not rationally addressed, they would pose risks of mine closure. Thus, a risk management method is needed to mitigate these adverse impacts and address mine-closure issues. An integral framework for mine-closure risk management that includes risk assessment and risk treatment was proposed. Given the fuzziness and randomness of the transformation between qualitative and quantitative knowledge in the risk assessment process, a novel risk assessment method based on the cloud model was presented, which fully considers the uncertainty in risks themselves and in the reasoning process. Closed mine reutilization is an effective risk treatment option in response to the identified high risks, but it requires selecting optimal reutilization strategies for the successful implementation of the reuse plan. To this end, a hybrid semi-quantitative decision method is proposed to optimize decision-making. The results of a case study showed that this risk management methodology can help budget planning for risk treatment and provide an instructional framework to effectively reduce the negative effects of closed mines.