Impacts of Mine Closure on the Quality of Life of the Neighboring Community

Abstract

The quality of life in the society in the neighborhood of mining is result of gradual adoption of a characteristic life-style that is highly influenced by mining industry. There are number of attributes of a family and the society that are affected by mining. The overall realization of these impacts is reflected on the quality of life. In order to sustain the societal developments beyond the mine closure, it is essential to plan post mining activities in the area. To minimize the societal impacts on the nearby communities, it is necessary to predict the impacts of mine closure before closure planning is initiated. However, there are no comprehensive indicators and methodology to measure social impact of mine closure. This paper highlights the results of a study to quantify the degree of adverse effects of mine closure on the quality of life of neighboring communities adopting the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the Latent Variables Interaction Modeling (LVM) techniques