Author(s)

M. Papini, L. Longoni & K. Dell’Orto

Abstract

The reconversion of abandoned mines for touristic aims tentatively began some years ago: now it has gained great acknowledgement from the public and specialists who are interested in the historic, scientific and cultural aspects of mines. Due to this increased presence of tourists it is necessary to ensure safety inside mines. In the last years the issue of safety in underground works aroused great attention in Italian, European and Extra-European state laws after the occurrence of serious lethal accidents inside road galleries, extractive mines and caves. However, these laws only apply to mines still in use, with have different problems than those occurring in abandoned mining sites. Old mines, now used for touristic purposes, are visited by people that don’t know anything about problems that can occur in underground environments and don’t perceive risk situations: they can display unpredictable behaviour and in critical conditions it is very difficult to keep the situation under control. As a result, we developed these Emergency Guidelines (based on two mines) in order to create a model and originate general directives to be followed by other mines, as happens with other events in the Civil Protection field. First of all we defined risk scenarios and then traced the necessity of mobilization of operative structures. In addition, mines have been mapped with a GIS, including in the geo referenced map all the information about the mine that we thought to be useful to provide faster and more effective intervention in case of an emergency. Keywords: abandoned mines, safety, GIS, risk scenarios.

Keywords

abandoned mines, safety, GIS, risk scenarios.