Latent Variable Modeling Approach for Assessing Social Impacts of Mine Closure

Abstract

Mining stimulates environmental and economic impacts on the neighboring community right from the inception to the closure of its operations. The society in the neighborhood of mining gradually adopts a characteristic lifestyle that is highly influenced by the mining. In order to sustain the societal development beyond the mine closure, it is necessary to plan post mining activities in the area. Thus, it is essential to predict the impacts of mine closure well before the closure. Many societal and family attributes are affected by mine closure. Impact on these attributes is reflected on the overall quality of life of the neighboring community. There are no adequate indicators and/or methodology available to measure social impacts of mine closure on a neighboring community. This paper made an attempt to develop such methodology to predict the degree of adverse effects of mine closure on the quality of life of neighboring communities using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the Latent Variables Interaction Model (LVM).