Climate & Environment
Tailings Dam
An embankment impounding mine tailings — whose catastrophic failures (Brumadinho 2019) drove the first global safety standard.
Definition
A tailings dam is an embankment structure impounding the slurry of waste from mineral processing. Unlike water dams, they are built progressively over decades — often by the "upstream" method, raising the dam on its own settled tailings — and must contain their contents forever. Failures are among the worst industrial disasters: Brumadinho, Brazil (2019) killed 270 people, following the Mariana Samarco collapse (2015); together they triggered the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM, 2020), the first global standard, backed by UNEP, ICMM and investor coalitions.
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