Landslides and quarries in Italy: Reflections on census and safety

Abstract

A quarry geotechnical project consists mainly in the calculation of the inclination of the excavation faces and of environmental recovery profiles. Quarry fronts are treated in the Eurocodes as generic excavation fronts equalizing the mining to civil engineering. A quarry face is designed to ensure production and safety, in harmonious balance. In order to evaluate the efficacy of the design, according to more restrictive rules, it was decided to use as a diagnostic tool, the incidence of landslides in the mining yards, assuming that they are pathological signs of design errors. The ANIM (National Association of Mining Engineers) has promoted a census of the landslides in the mining sites in co-operation with the offices of Mining Police. The project has provided, already in the start, interesting directions. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.