Can we transition mines to their post-mining land use earlier?

Authors: Purtill, JA; Sharma, V; Boggs, G Download Paper Open access courtesy of:

DOI https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_repo/2615_03

Cite As:
Purtill, JA, Sharma, V & Boggs, G 2026, 'Can we transition mines to their post-mining land use earlier? ', in AB Fourie, G Boggs, J Heyes & M Tibbett (eds), Mine Closure 2026: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Mine Closure, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, pp. 1-11, https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_repo/2615_03



Abstract:
Very few mines in Australia have successfully transitioned to a post-mining land use and had their environmental approvals surrendered under contemporary environmental legislation. Those that have are relatively simple or short-lived operations. Globally there are examples of successful closures driven by longstanding legislative requirements: US coal mines under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act 1977 being the exemplar. However, there are fewer examples of the successful transition of mines to a postmining land use where mines have complex geotechnical or geochemical attributes, or where governments have not provided significant subsidies to develop those post-mining land uses, as has occurred in European lignite mining areas. The conventional approach to the mine life cycle is to extract the resource, potentially do some progressive rehabilitation along the way and then complete the majority of rehabilitation after operations have ceased. Mined land is then presented to the regulator for surrender. The track record of successful mine transitions in Australia would suggest this paradigm is not delivering optimal transitions to post-mining futures. Given very little in the literature has canvassed the views of mine rehabilitation experts on this situation, an expert elicitation survey was undertaken to assess what barriers to post-mining land uses being deployed earlier in the mining cycle experts thought might exist. These experts are grappling with the challenges of mine transitions and are well-placed to provide guidance. Specifically, the experts were asked to consider the likelihood and severity of potential barriers to post-mining land uses being dovetailed onto operational mines. This paper summarises the main areas of consensus and divergence in expert views and reports back on a process commenced with delegates to Mine Closure 2023 in Reno, Nevada, United States. The results of this research provide some early insights into opportunities to remove critical barriers to more and earlier beneficial uses of mined lands.

Keywords: Post-mining land use, expert elicitation survey, mine rehabilitation, mine transitions

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