Multi-criteria decision-making to support sustainable water management in a mining complex in Brazil

Water management in mining is a significant issue for sustainability due to the strong dependence on this resource, especially for those operations with beneficiation plants. This is particularly relevant for mining operations located in the Southeast region of Brazil, which concentrates most part of the country's population as well as most part of the mining facilities, but a small portion of the water available in the territory. This paper presents a case study of selection of sustainable water management strategies for a mining complex located in this region. A stepwise process for incorporating environmental risks into the decision-making using a multi-criteria approach and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was developed and applied in this case study, with corporate image, representing part of the social dimension, environmental and economic as the main decision criteria. This stepwise process proved to be a robust tool for supporting the evaluation and selection of alternatives in the case study, with potential to be used in other corporate decision contexts where environmental risks are relevant. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.