Water Balance of Pit Lake Development in the Equatorial Region

Abstract

In recent years, Indonesia has become the largest coal exporter in the world, and most of the coal is being mined by means of open-pit mining. The closure of an open-pit mine will usually leave a pit morphological landform that, in most cases, will be developed into a pit lake. One of the main issues in developing a pit lake is the understanding of the pit lake filling process. This paper discusses the hydrological model in filling the mineout void in a coal mine in Kalimantan which is located close to the equatorial line. The J-void is a mineout coal pit that is 3000 m long and 1000 m wide, with a maximum depth of 145 m. The development of the J-void pit lake after the last load of coal had been mined out experienced a dynamic process, such as backfilling activities with an overburden as well as pumping mine water from the surrounding pits. There are two components in the model, i.e., overland/subsurface and pit area. The overland zone is simulated using the Rainfall-Runoff NRECA Hydrological Model approach to determine the runoff and groundwater components, whereas the pit area is affected by direct rainfall and evaporation. The model is validated with the observation data. The main source of water in the J-void pit lake is rainwater, both from the surrounding catchment area as well as direct rainfall. As this coal mine area is characterized as a multi-pit area and, consequently, several pit lakes will be formed in the future, the result of the hydrological model is very useful in planning the future pit lakes.