Many regulatory bodies have, or are considering, guidelines that
require rehabilitated mine spoils to be erosionally stable
(satisfying quantitative limits) over specified design lifetimes.
One of the problems facing the industry is that many of the
computer models used for erosion assessment were developed for
agricultural applications and are unable to predict the change in
the shape of engineered landforms over extended periods of time.
In particular, they cannot predict where valleys and gullies will
develop in the landforms and how big or deep they will be.
Furthermore, many existing models require considerable skill to
use. A computer model (SIBERIA) developed by the first author,
able to model this valley and gully development over long design
lifetimes, and which is directly based on digital terrain maps is
discussed here. Proposed rehabilitation strategies for waste rock
dumps at Ranger Uranium Mine as assessed with SIBERIA are
discussed. New features of SIBERIA of interest to the mining
industry include the spatial distribution of erosion, deposition and
gully development, and various measures of the quantitative risk
of failure. A collaborative project with the Queensland Coal
Association, involving the first author, aims to deliver these
capabilities to the coal industry in a user-friendly package. The
objective is the cost-effective rehabilitation of strip mines. Some
preliminary results from this project are presented.