Evolution of tailings and reclamation research in Western Canada: 1970 - 2026

The diverse geology and geomorphology of Western Canada have facilitated the development of a mature mining industry. A variety of commodities such as metals, bitumen, and coal are mined across mountainous, Arctic, and boreal forest regions. In parallel with industrial development, significant research on mine waste and reclamation has occurred in the Western Canadian provinces and territories. In this presentation, the timeline of mine waste research at a Western Canadian university (the University of Alberta) is used to illustrate how perceptions of the geotechnical challenges of mine waste materials and reclamation priorities have evolved over the past 5 decades.

Academic research on oil sands tailings, a fine-grained waste product produced by bitumen mining, began in the 1970s with early work focused on characterizing geotechnical behaviour. The goal of much of this work, from its early stages until the present day, has been to understand consolidation behaviour, which contributes to the challenges of dewatering oil sands tailings. This included a 30-year long standpipe experiment beginning in 1982, and continued interest in consolidation contributed to the construction of Western Canada’s only geotechnical beam centrifuge in 2012 to simulate the effects of long term vertical stress. Starting in the 1990s, different methods of dewatering tailings to speed reclamation progress have been studied, ranging from physical processes such as freezing and thawing to more recent studies on polymer chemical amendments.

Similar to other jurisdictions, acid rock drainage (ARD) is a significant concern for many hard rock mines in Western Canada. Due to the cold climate of the region, a number of studies have investigated the effect of freezing temperatures on ARD. Computer modelling of temperature and water flow in mine waste to predict ARD has been a research focus since the 2010s. This has led to recent research on soil covers and novel mine waste disposal methods such as filtering and commingling.

​The importance of tailings and reclamation research to the mining industry in Western Canada is exemplified by longstanding collaborations with major mining operations and government regulators. This has enabled the application of continuously-evolving geotechnical best practices to academic research. As more rigorous methods of soil mechanics analysis, such as unsaturated and critical state soil mechanics, have been developed, they have been increasingly applied to mine waste. More recently, developing risk-based design approaches for reclamation strategies has been an area of research focus.

Over the past 5 decades, research on tailings and reclamation in Western Canada and beyond has evolved from early geotechnical characterization of mine waste to the development of novel management strategies. While this represents a remarkable technical achievement, the development of resilient reclamation ecosystems remains a challenge. It is suggested that future geotechnical research on tailings and reclamation should prioritize interdisciplinary collaboration to support the development of safe, sustainable, and resilient post-mining landscapes.