Untangling the complex web of environmental, social, and economic impacts in deep and large-scale open-pit mining projects using a dynamic modeling framework

Assessing sustainability in deep and large-scale open pit mines poses unique challenges due to the considerable number of interrelated environmental, social, and economic impacts that span various temporal and spatial scales. This study aims to advance the sustainability assessment of such projects through a dynamic model. Specifically, it proposes integrating temporal and spatial aspects into the sustainability model to compute a dynamic sustainability score. A comprehensive set of 99 impact factors across 28 categories are recognized and evaluated based on their dynamic weights and then analyzed using Fuzzy DEMATEL to untangle the complex web of interrelationships. After implementing the model in the Sungun Copper Mine in northwest Iran, the most influential environmental, social, and economic impacts were identified. Once calculating their dynamic weights, considering temporal and spatial scales, their cause and effect (R–C values) were determined. Environmental groups as “climate change, water, waste, acid mine drainage, biodiversity and ecosystem, soil” and one economic group, namely “production rate and income,” are causes, with the R–C value of 0.962, 0.415, 1.681, 0.597, 0.037, and 0.252 respectively. Alternatively, social groups, including “employment, revenue generation, quality of life, life expectancy, legislative frameworks/mining image,” and economic groups, including “socioeconomic factors, and economic development,” are the effect factors, with R–C value of −0.118, −0.005, −1.493, −1.579, −1.130, −0.678, and −0.178, respectively. This study presents the first comprehensive Dynamic Cause-Effect Analysis in form of a sustainability assessment model that integrates spatial and temporal scales of impact factors, alongside their interrelationships for deep and large-scale open-pit mining projects.