Risk assessment for leakage from a heap leach pad mulitlayer barrier: joint treatment of aleatory and epistemic uncertainties

Abstract

There is a shift in the mining industry towards an increased use of risk assessment at the various stages of a mining project. This applies also to the use of geosynthetics in mining applications, e.g. in heap leach pads. Risk assessments use models that involve parameters often affected by uncertainty. In this paper we propose a risk assessment for leakage from a heap leach pad multilayer liner, taking into account two distinct types of uncertainties: random (reflecting variability) and epistemic (reflecting the incomplete nature of available information). It is shown how these distinct types of uncertainties can be taken into account in the estimation of risk, in order to contribute more consistently to the decision-making process.