South Africa
Witwatersrand
Geoscience for Health, Groundwater and the Environment
Understanding and improving the management of mine water
Mine and Environmental Water Management Project
Mining has played an important role in growing the South African economy. However, along with the economic benefits, mining has left a negative environmental legacy, with many of its impacts affecting the country’s water resources. Therefore, a team of Council for Geoscience scientists are working on all aspects of the impacts of mining on water resources.
Critical areas of impact in South Africa are related to gold and coal mining. In the Witwatersrand, the Council for Geoscience has undertaken a number of projects aimed at understanding and improving the management of mine water.
Areas in the Witwatersrand covered by the Council for Geoscience mine and environmental water management project activities.
These include:
- A long-term project to better understand the ingress of water into mines and to reduce the volume of water, to reduce the cost of pumping and treating this water and to keep clean water clean.
- The Council for Geoscience has coordinated a team of experts reporting to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Acid Mine Drainage. The team’s report recommended the establishment of pump-and-treat infrastructure in the West Rand, Central Rand and East Rand goldfields, to prevent the water which has been flooding into these mines from discharging to the surface, and to treat the water before discharge.
- An assessment of the risk posed by mining activities in South Africa’s coalfields.
- Pilot testing of passive treatment technologies for acid mine drainage in the Ermelo coalfield.
The key objectives of mine water research at the Council for Geoscience include developing a better understanding of the impacts of mining on water resources and the development of solutions to proactively manage these impacts.
