Risk assessment in the open pit mining industry - a short review

Abstract

The extractive industry is simultaneously one of the human civilisation pillars for the resources it provides, but also one of those with the highest accident index. The quarries exploitation, amongst all extractive industry activities, being considered a high-risk occupation in which, due to the development of their respective professional activities, the workers are exposed to risks that may impact on their health as well as in their physical integrity. This work aimed to identify risk assessment methods specifically used in the open pit mining industry. The research of information was based on the PRISMA methodology, where 12 databases with the appropriate keywords were searched. A total of 38,594 articles were obtained, and 42 were selected after the sorting process. It was verified that the risk assessment methods specifically addressed to the extractive industry were fundamentally destined for environmental and geological risks; for occupational risks, general evaluation methods were used. This scenario leaves open the necessity of developing methods specifically aimed at assessing the accident risk in the open pit mining industry. (c) Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.