Water and Planetary Health Analytics (WAPHA) global metal mines database

Hudson-Edwards, Karen1 ; Owen, John2 ; Kemp, Deanna3 ; Scussolini, Paolo4 ; Lechner, Alex5 ; Macklin, Mark5 ; Brewer, Paul6 ; Thomas, Christopher5 ; Lewin, John6 ; Eilander, Dirk4 ; Bird, Graham7 ; Mangalaa, KR8 ; Mudbhatkal, Amogh5

Published Sep 07, 2023 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j3tx95xmg

Data files

Sep 07, 2023 version files 6.88 MB

Global_TDFs.zip

14.89 KB
Global_TSFs.zip

287.39 KB
Macklin_et_al_code.txt

3.30 KB
README.md

2.98 KB
world_active_mines_17.05.2023.xlsx

818.72 KB
world_inactive_mines_17.05.2023.xlsx

5.75 MB

Abstract

An estimated 23 M people live on floodplains affected by potentially dangerous concentrations of toxic waste derived from past and present metal mining activity. We analyze the global dimensions of this hazard, particularly Pb, Zn, Cu and As, using a geo-referenced global database detailing all known metal mining sites, and intact/failed tailings storage facilities. We then use process-based and empirically tested modelling, to produce a global assessment of metal mining contamination in river systems, and the number of human populations, and livestock exposed. Worldwide, metal mines impact 479,200 km of river channels and 164,000 km²of floodplains. The number of people exposed to contamination sourced from long-term discharge of mining waste into rivers is almost fifty times greater than the number directly impacted by tailings dam failures.

README: The WAPHA georeferenced global database of mine sites, tailings storage facilities and tailings dam failures.

The WAPHA’s georeferenced global database (excluding proprietary datasets) holds data on (i) 21,164 active mine sites, (ii) 150,309 inactive mine sites, (iii) 11,587 tailings storage facilities (TSFs), and (iv) 257 tailings dam failures (TDFs).

Description of the data and file structure

The Water and Planetary Health Analytics (WAPHA) global metal mines database is divided into four components.

Publicly available data on (i) active and (ii) inactive metal mines are available from the United States Geological Survey Mineral Resources Data System (https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/), BritPits database of the British Geological Survey (https://www.bgs.ac.uk/datasets/britpits/), and the S&P Global Market Intelligence database (https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/metals-mining). In addition, data for c. 100,000 additional active/inactive mines, obtained from academic and gray literature, are stored in two Excel spreadsheets in the WAPHA database (word_active_mines_17.05.2023 & word_inactive_mines_17.005.2023).

Each spreadsheet lists mine names (column A), mine status i.e. active or inactive (column B), the principal commodity mined (column C), and lat/long coordinates (columns D & E).

Publicly available data relating to (iii) tailings storage facilities (TSFs), and (iv) tailings dam failures (TDFs), are available from: ICOLD/UNEP (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8W0hAQAAIAAJ), the World Information Service on Energy (https://wise-uranium.org/mdaf.html), the World Mine Tailings Failures and Global Tailings Portal databases (https://tailing.grida.no/). Additional TSF/TDF data, obtained from academic and gray literature, are stored in two compressed ShapeFiles (zipfiles) in the WAPHA database (Global_TSFs.zip & Global TDFs.zip).

Sharing/Access information

Data for (i) active mine sites and (ii) inactive mine sites are stored are stored as Excel spreadsheets. NB the number of active/inactive mines shown in the spreadsheets is less than that reported in Table S1, because proprietary data sources have not been included (i.e. MRDS, BRITPITS and S&P).

Data for (iii) TSFs and (iv) TDFs are stored as zipped Shapefiles. Data should be uncompressed and then imported into any GIS programme that can read Shapefiles.

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Code/Software

This project involved a complex series of analyses using a suite of software tools, with many manual operation stages. Modelling was implemented procedurally in MATLAB v9.9.0 (R2020b) with the open source TopoToolbox MATLAB program for the analysis of digital elevation models (https://topotoolbox.wordpress.com). Modelling workflow is presented in SI Figure S8 with example code available in the WAPHA database (Macklin et al code.pdf). Citations to software sources are given in the manuscript and SI.