Watch Out for the Tailings Pond, a Sharp Edge Hanging over Our Heads: Lessons Learned and Perceptions from the Brumadinho Tailings Dam Failure Disaster
A catastrophic tailings dam failure disaster occurred in Brumadinho, Brazil on 25 January 2019, which resulted in over 270 casualties, 24,000 residents evacuated, and a huge economic loss. Environmental concerns were raised for the potential pollution of water due to tailings waste entering the Para...
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doaj-4d3aa32778ce45ccb860e260e1fee6562021-05-31T23:05:16ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922021-05-01131775177510.3390/rs13091775Watch Out for the Tailings Pond, a Sharp Edge Hanging over Our Heads: Lessons Learned and Perceptions from the Brumadinho Tailings Dam Failure DisasterDeqiang Cheng0Yifei Cui1Zhenhong Li2Javed Iqbal3Key Research Institute of Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development & Collaborative Innovation Center on Yellow River Civilization Jointly Built by Henan Province and Ministry of Education, Henan University, Kaifeng 475001, ChinaState Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, ChinaCollege of Geological Engineering and Geomatics, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710054, ChinaKey Laboratory of Mountain Hazards and Earth Surface Process, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, ChinaA catastrophic tailings dam failure disaster occurred in Brumadinho, Brazil on 25 January 2019, which resulted in over 270 casualties, 24,000 residents evacuated, and a huge economic loss. Environmental concerns were raised for the potential pollution of water due to tailings waste entering the Paraopeba River. In this paper, a detailed analysis has been carried out to investigate the disaster conditions of the Brumadinho dam failure using satellite images with different spatial resolutions. Our in-depth analysis reveals that the hazard chain caused by this failure contained three stages, namely dam failure, mudflow, and the hyperconcentrated flow in the Paraopeba River. The variation characteristics of turbidity of the Rio Paraopeba River after the disaster have also been investigated using high-resolution remote sensing images, followed by a qualitative analysis of the impacts on the downstream reservoir of the Retiro Baixo Plant that was over 300 km away from the dam failure origin. It is believed that, on the one hand, the lack of dam stability management at the maintenance stage was the main cause of this disaster. On the other hand, the abundant antecedent precipitation caused by extreme weather events should be a critical triggering factor. Furthermore, the spatiotemporal pattern mining of global tailings dam failures revealed that the Brumadinho dam disaster belonged to a Consecutive Hot Spot area, suggesting that the regular drainage inspection, risk assessment, monitoring, and early warning of tailings dam in Consecutive Hot Spot areas still need to be strengthened for disaster mitigation.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/9/1775hazard chainturbiditysuspended sediment detectionextreme climate eventstailing dam risk managementspatiotemporal pattern mining |
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DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Deqiang Cheng Yifei Cui Zhenhong Li Javed Iqbal |
spellingShingle |
Deqiang Cheng Yifei Cui Zhenhong Li Javed Iqbal Watch Out for the Tailings Pond, a Sharp Edge Hanging over Our Heads: Lessons Learned and Perceptions from the Brumadinho Tailings Dam Failure Disaster Remote Sensing hazard chain turbidity suspended sediment detection extreme climate events tailing dam risk management spatiotemporal pattern mining |
author_facet |
Deqiang Cheng Yifei Cui Zhenhong Li Javed Iqbal |
author_sort |
Deqiang Cheng |
title |
Watch Out for the Tailings Pond, a Sharp Edge Hanging over Our Heads: Lessons Learned and Perceptions from the Brumadinho Tailings Dam Failure Disaster |
title_short |
Watch Out for the Tailings Pond, a Sharp Edge Hanging over Our Heads: Lessons Learned and Perceptions from the Brumadinho Tailings Dam Failure Disaster |
title_full |
Watch Out for the Tailings Pond, a Sharp Edge Hanging over Our Heads: Lessons Learned and Perceptions from the Brumadinho Tailings Dam Failure Disaster |
title_fullStr |
Watch Out for the Tailings Pond, a Sharp Edge Hanging over Our Heads: Lessons Learned and Perceptions from the Brumadinho Tailings Dam Failure Disaster |
title_full_unstemmed |
Watch Out for the Tailings Pond, a Sharp Edge Hanging over Our Heads: Lessons Learned and Perceptions from the Brumadinho Tailings Dam Failure Disaster |
title_sort |
watch out for the tailings pond, a sharp edge hanging over our heads: lessons learned and perceptions from the brumadinho tailings dam failure disaster |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
series |
Remote Sensing |
issn |
2072-4292 |
publishDate |
2021-05-01 |
description |
A catastrophic tailings dam failure disaster occurred in Brumadinho, Brazil on 25 January 2019, which resulted in over 270 casualties, 24,000 residents evacuated, and a huge economic loss. Environmental concerns were raised for the potential pollution of water due to tailings waste entering the Paraopeba River. In this paper, a detailed analysis has been carried out to investigate the disaster conditions of the Brumadinho dam failure using satellite images with different spatial resolutions. Our in-depth analysis reveals that the hazard chain caused by this failure contained three stages, namely dam failure, mudflow, and the hyperconcentrated flow in the Paraopeba River. The variation characteristics of turbidity of the Rio Paraopeba River after the disaster have also been investigated using high-resolution remote sensing images, followed by a qualitative analysis of the impacts on the downstream reservoir of the Retiro Baixo Plant that was over 300 km away from the dam failure origin. It is believed that, on the one hand, the lack of dam stability management at the maintenance stage was the main cause of this disaster. On the other hand, the abundant antecedent precipitation caused by extreme weather events should be a critical triggering factor. Furthermore, the spatiotemporal pattern mining of global tailings dam failures revealed that the Brumadinho dam disaster belonged to a Consecutive Hot Spot area, suggesting that the regular drainage inspection, risk assessment, monitoring, and early warning of tailings dam in Consecutive Hot Spot areas still need to be strengthened for disaster mitigation. |
topic |
hazard chain turbidity suspended sediment detection extreme climate events tailing dam risk management spatiotemporal pattern mining |
url |
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/9/1775 |
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