MINEARC Webinar 3: Water, Tailings, and Circular Economy

Register to the event here

MINEARC Webinar 3 brings together stakeholders from the mining industry, science, and technology communities to discuss topical issues concerning Water, Tailings management, and Circular Economy strategies. In addition to facilitating discussion of opportunities and challenges, the event disseminates knowledge on best practices and recent technological and scientific developments.

Webinar 3 is part of a series hosted by the MINEARC project. The previous webinars in 2024 were successful in bringing together experts in the fields of (1) Mineral resource and sustainable exploration, and (2) Mining & Processing of CRMs.


MINEARC Webinar 3: Water, Tailings, and Circular Economy

Webinar time (EEST / GMT+3): 9:00—16:00, 25-26 November 2025

Water usage in mining is highly intensive, and the associated costs can be a significant barrier to the economic viability of mining projects, which are not limited to arid regions. As the industry increasingly turns to lower-grade ores, water demand grows, which puts further stress on local water bodies and communities. Consequently, finding solutions for responsible water usage in mining operations is driven by the increasing environmental and socioeconomic challenges and risks associated with water and tailings management. Improving water recyclability and /or exploring waterless processing require new approaches.

Tailings and waste rocks pose significant environmental pollution risks to soil and water systems, particularly those generated in the past when the concept of sustainable mining was not yet fully developed. Developments from this perspective include cost-effective and efficient methods for managing mining waste throughout the mine's life cycle, pretreatment of final tailings before disposal, integrating geophysical, geochemical, and hydrological studies.

On the other hand, shifting the approach from risk mitigation to resource valorisation and a circular economy, new developments are focusing on the recovery of potentially valuable commodities (including CRMs) from tailings as "secondary raw materials"; exploring tailings as precursor materials for geopolymers, and carbonation of tailings, CO2-conscious materials for construction.

The themes of the webinar include:

• Water management in mining industry & best practices
• Mine water, impacts, treatment and management
• Tailings life-cycle operations and management
• Tailings as secondary source for raw materials, incl. CRMs
• Tailings, geopolymers, carbonation, construction materials
• Side-stream and circular economy strategies

This event is funded by US Department of States/US Bureau of Energy Resources and co-organized by Horizon Europe projects named AVANTIS, EXCEED, MINE.IO.

The program with detailed speaker introduction and abstracts of the speeches are published on this site soon.

Additional info

Prof. Saija Luukkanen
Oulu Mining School, University of Oulu
Email: Saija.Luukkanen@oulu.fi

Dr. Adeyemi Aladejare
Oulu Mining School, University of Oulu
Email: Adeyemi.Aladejare@oulu.fi

Dr. Raul Mollehuara Canales
Oulu Mining School, University of Oulu
Email: Raul.MollehuaraCanales@oulu.fi

Dr. Anu Sirviö
Faculty of Technology, University of Oulu
email: anu.sirvio@oulu.fi