Course Description
A tailings dam failure is the mining industry's defining catastrophic risk: it kills people, destroys watersheds, and ends companies. After Mariana and Brumadinho, the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management set expectations that now govern financing, insurance and licence to operate — and conformance is assessed, not asserted.
This course develops tailings management capability. Participants learn tailings characteristics and behaviour, storage facility types and construction methods, the physics of failure including liquefaction, design principles and the design basis, water management, monitoring and instrumentation, the GISTM framework and its requirements, governance including the Engineer of Record and Accountable Executive, emergency preparedness, and closure.
What you will achieve
By the end of this training course, participants will be able to:
- Explain tailings characteristics, deposition and behaviour
- Compare storage facility types and construction methods
- Explain failure mechanisms including static and seismic liquefaction
- Apply design principles and establish the design basis
- Manage water balance and its role in stability
- Build monitoring and instrumentation programmes
- Apply the GISTM framework and its requirements
- Establish governance: Engineer of Record, Accountable Executive, reviews
How the course is delivered
The course combines tailings engineering with governance and conformance work, using real failure case studies and realistic facility scenarios. Participants assess design basis, monitoring adequacy and GISTM conformance gaps.
The programme treats tailings as both an engineering and an accountability problem, because the standard makes named individuals responsible and the failures show that governance failed before the dam did.
Designed for
This training course is ideal for:
- Tailings, geotechnical and civil engineers
- Mine operations and technical services managers
- Environmental and HSE professionals in mining
- Corporate risk and governance staff
- Anyone accountable for tailings facilities
Daily programme
- Tailings characteristics and behaviour
- Deposition and consolidation
- Facility types and construction methods
- Upstream, downstream and centreline construction
- Failure mechanisms and case studies
- Static and seismic liquefaction
- Design principles and the design basis
- Factor of safety and design criteria
- Water balance and management
- Seepage and drainage
- Monitoring and instrumentation
- Trigger action response plans
- The GISTM framework and its principles
- Conformance requirements and assessment
- Engineer of Record and Accountable Executive
- Independent review and audit
- Emergency preparedness and response
- Dam breach analysis and consequence
- Closure and long-term stewardship
- Conformance gap workshop
Certification & accreditation
BII Certificate of Completion
BII Certificate of Completion Upon successful completion, participants receive a BII Development Institute Certificate of Completion with a unique reference code that is independently verifiable. Our certificates are recognised internationally and reflect successful completion of your chosen programme.
