Tailings storage facilities (TSFs) are critical to modern mining operations, serving as containment systems for the waste by-products generated during ore processing. While they’re essential for managing large volumes of tailings, TSFs also carry serious risks - including dam failures, water contamination, and ecological damage.
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In response to these challenges, the mining industry is taking steps to improve TSF design, strengthen risk management frameworks, and reduce long-term environmental impact.
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An Overview of TSFs
TSFs are purpose-built structures used to contain the waste (or tailings) generated during metal ore processing. These facilities typically consist of embankments (tailings dams) and supporting infrastructure designed to manage both the solid materials and the water used in processing.
Tailings are usually stored as a slurry, a mixture of finely ground rock and water. In some cases, they’re thickened into a paste or mechanically dewatered to reduce the risk of structural failure. The way tailings are handled has a direct impact on the safety, environmental performance, and long-term stability of the facility.
The embankments themselves can be made from earthfill or, in some designs, from the tailings material. Either way, TSFs are not just storage sites - they are critical systems that must safely manage large volumes of mining waste over decades or even centuries.1-3
TSFs Risk Profile
Every year, mining operations generate around 13 to 14 billion tons of potentially toxic wet slurry waste/tailings, typically stored in TSFs. While these facilities are essential, they also carry a high risk profile. Since 1915, there have been 257 recorded TSF failures, releasing an estimated 250 million cubic meters of tailings. These incidents have damaged over 5000 square kilometers of land, caused 2650 deaths, and directly affected more than 317,000 people through property loss, displacement, and health impacts.1,2
A global analysis of 18,401 mine sites reveals a historical TSF failure rate of 1.2 % - a rate nearly 1000 times higher than that of water storage dams, which fail at just 0.001 %. On average, one to two TSF failures still occur each year. These typically involve small- to medium-sized facilities (30 meters or less in height) holding up to five million cubic meters of tailings. When a failure happens, about 20 % of the stored material is released. As the journal notes, “there is little evidence that failure rates have decreased over the past century despite advances in design.”1,2
TSF failures are often triggered by seismic events, weak or unstable foundations, and liquefaction. Since 2000, the severity and scale of these events have increased, largely due to the rise of large-scale mining and the need to process lower-grade ores. Despite environmental, societal, and economic impacts, TSFs receive less attention than production processes, and the industry frequently avoids labeling failures as disasters. Historical failures indicate poor governance, insufficient investment, and inadequate technical oversight as contributing factors. Common failure modes include overtopping and overflow, slope instability, foundation failure, and seepage/internal erosion.1,2
The method of construction also plays a significant role in TSF stability. Facilities built using upstream or centerline techniques are more prone to issues such as slope instability from excess pore pressure, weak foundations that lead to static liquefaction, and deformation caused by seismic activity. Poor water management can also lead to overtopping. In contrast, TSFs built using the downstream method, similar to conventional water dams, have shown significantly lower failure rates.2
Mitigating the Risks
The mining industry is facing a defining moment in how it approaches tailings management. More than five years after the Brumadinho disaster, efforts to improve safety and environmental performance remain uneven. Despite the introduction of new standards and technologies, reform has been slowed by structural inertia, fragmented governance, limited technical capacity, and budget constraints.
Adoption of the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management has been patchy. Many organizations still approach compliance as a goal in itself, rather than a foundation for continuous improvement. This mindset has made it difficult to build the kind of systemic resilience needed to reduce the likelihood and impact of failures.
At the same time, investor pressure and growing community awareness are raising the stakes. The cost of failure - both reputational and financial - is rising. To meet this moment, the industry must move beyond reactive compliance and adopt a more proactive, integrated approach to risk. That means sustained investment, stronger governance, and a cultural shift that embeds accountability and innovation at all levels.4
Designing for Climate-Related Disruptions
As climate change accelerates, its link to tailings risk is becoming more urgent. TSFs were often designed based on historical weather patterns, but those patterns are no longer reliable. More frequent and intense rainfall, prolonged droughts, and increased seismic activity are putting pressure on infrastructure that wasn’t built with these extremes in mind.
The safety of tailings facilities depends heavily on water balance, structural integrity, and operational control - all of which are being affected by climate volatility. Some forward-looking operators are beginning to integrate climate scenario modeling into their risk assessments. However, it’s still rare for this analysis to directly inform facility design, deposition planning, or emergency response strategies.
Real-time data is becoming critical in managing these evolving risks. For example, Endress+Hauser's sensor systems can detect changes in flow and pressure associated with storm events, enabling rapid intervention. Still, real resilience comes from closed-loop systems that turn data into automated or procedural actions, not just alerts.4
Canary Systems offers adaptive monitoring that overlays live data on pore water pressure, ground movement, and seismic activity with historical baselines, helping operators detect and address anomalies early. Weir's Arterra™ product line is designed to improve the durability of slurry transport systems under harsher conditions, while McLanahan's QUICKCHANGE™ technology supports consistent dewatering by simplifying filter cloth changes during periods of heavy rainfall.4
A Greater Focus on Integration
Despite the technical complexity of tailings management, it’s often treated as an isolated function that is disconnected from broader operational and strategic systems. This lack of integration creates blind spots. For instance, advanced monitoring may not align with public disclosure requirements, and climate risk models might not inform procurement or emergency planning.
Addressing these gaps requires a systems-level approach. Tools like Canary Systems’ geospatial integration platform help by contextualizing performance data, connecting metrics like pore pressure or ground movement to factors such as topography, climate trends, and infrastructure conditions. This creates a shared understanding across technical teams, leadership, regulators, and communities.4
Similarly, Endress+Hauser’s networked instrumentation provides real-time insights into flow, pressure, and density, allowing early detection of system deviations. But these insights are only as useful as the governance systems that act on them. The integrated operations center model, used in the energy sector, offers a compelling blueprint: it unifies multidisciplinary data into a single hub to guide real-time decision-making.
Weir’s engineering innovations, including Arterra™ UHMWPE pipelines, also demonstrate how design improvements can extend asset life, lower energy consumption, reduce failure risks, and support environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outcomes. This kind of integrated strategy aligns closely with what the journal describes as a shift from “incremental upgrades to system-wide change.” Regulators are increasingly pushing for this kind of holistic governance, expecting tailings management strategies to include climate resilience, social accountability, and long-term sustainability, not as add-ons, but as core components.4
Conclusion
Managing tailings safely has always been a complex task; however, today the stakes are higher, and the margin for error is even smaller. Climate extremes, aging infrastructure, and rising public scrutiny are exposing the limits of business-as-usual approaches.
The tools to improve are out there. So are the standards. What’s missing, in many cases, is the willingness to treat tailings management as a central, strategic priority - not a standalone technical issue. That means aligning engineering, operations, and governance to build something more durable and responsible over the long term.
As one of the journal’s authors notes, “Tailings are not merely an engineering problem, but an ethical one, an environmental one, and increasingly, a financial one.” For the mining industry, this means earning and keeping the trust of the communities and environments it operates within.
References and Further Reading
- A., K. et al. (2024). Tailings storage facilities, failures and disaster risk. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 5(9), 612-630. DOI: 10.1038/s43017-024-00576-4, https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-024-00576-4
- Tailings Storage Facilities [Online] Available at https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/342da25a-04bf-5577-957d-50b2ea759b0d (Accessed on 11 November 2025)
- An Introduction to Tailings Facilities [Online] Available at https://www.smenet.org/What-We-Do/Technical-Briefings/An-Introduction-to-Tailings-Management (Accessed on 11 November 2025)
- The tailings reckoning: Why the mining sector must rethink tailings risk [Online] Available at https://www.miningmagazine.com/partners/partner-content/4518330/tailings-reckoning-mining-sector-rethink-tailings-risk (Accessed on 11 November 2025)
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