It is generally associated with reduced employment levels, which can have a significant negative impact on local economies.
This has led to a range of unintended consequences[1] that have the potential to become sovereign risk if not adequately managed.
Older mines typically used wood beams, a foot or more thick, under loose rock and dirt as caps.
On-site planning is mostly about environmental rehabilitation and returning the landform to a reasonable condition where vegetative recovery is enhanced.
[5] An element of this is generating an offset against the high clost of environmental remediation, which in certain cases can exceed the value of the mineral that was mined in the first place.