REMINDNET- A network for the Recovery of Mining District

The extraction of minerals and metals from the earth's crust is as old as human mankind. The management of mine closure as well as post-closure is getting more and more attention, because in Europe as well as worldwide former mining regions are affected by environmental residues such as tailings, waste dumps, subsidence, and contaminated water, which are the results of unsatisfactory environmental performance of the mining industry in the past. All European countries face these problems and many of them lack the funds as well as capacity to manage these former mining sites. This network of proposers with 74 scientists and practitioners from more than 50 organisations from 32 EU countries focus on legislation, governance and management of these legacies, financing, and rehabilitation and monitoring techniques to improve implementation to minimize post-closure mining legacies. The project is organised into five work packages: government and management practices; socio-economic aspects and financing; environmental monitoring and risk management and use of abandoned mines; training and capacity building; dissemination, communication, and project management. The project will establish an European mining legacy database, compare present legal framework, governance structures and management approaches, provide input to mine authorities, regulators and financial institutions on socially balanced and environmentally friendly management of mine legacies, harmonise best practices, standards and lessons learnt for comprehensive and sustainable management of raw materials extraction legacies and disseminate the results to the public through an open access visualization platform. The network pools experts from currently separated fields (e.g. geologists, engineers, environmental and social scientists, metallurgists, economists, legal representatives, etc.) and aims to consolidate knowledge and foster mutual knowledge exchange between researchers.