Territorial Mining Scenarios for Sustainable Land-Planning: A Risk-Based Comparison on the Example of Gold Mining in French Guiana

Abstract

Mining can be the source and target of opportunities and threats of different natures exceeding the mine site perimeter, affecting the socio-ecological system and leading to social conflicts and entrepreneurial risks for mining companies. Hence, a mining project is a matter of land planning rather than a simple industrial object. Nevertheless, current mandatory risk and impact assessment methods are often performed on one project at a time, neglecting the coexistence of different mining activities and the socio-ecological vulnerability of the territory where mining takes place. This paper proposes an original risk-based approach to develop and compare different territorial mining scenarios (TMSs) to support land-planning strategies in mining territories, tested on the French Guiana gold mining sector. Five TMSs combining different mine types (e.g., legal artisanal, medium, large-scale mining, illegal mining) were developed for the same total amount of gold production at the watershed level. For each TMS, both accidental and ordinary risk scenarios were assessed through a GIS-based approach considering watershed socio-ecological vulnerability. Risks were finally weighted according to different stakeholders’ perception, and the TMSs were compared based on their global risk scores. Despite the multiple challenges highlighted, this paper highlights the feasibility of a methodological framework to support mining planning at the territory level.