Cave mining methods have become viable and preferred mass underground mining options where the objectives are low cost and high production rates. However, the cave mining industry has already entered into a less certain period or environment where some of the current cave mining options are already showing not to be fully suitable to achieving the envisaged low cost and high productivity objectives. This environment includes deeper and sometimes blind deposits (up to 1,400 m from surface), lower average grade deposits, harder and heterogeneous rock masses, higher stress and, in some cases, higher temperature environments. This is requiring design of greater caving block heights, demand for increased safety and productivity, and escalating mining costs (capital and operating). In addition, there is increasing shortage of technical skills, capital becoming more difficult to access, and communities desiring higher environmental standards. In this new cave mining environment, several hazards are identified that can have critical impact on safety, productivity and profitability. It is necessary, therefore, that these major hazards be acknowledged, and the likelihood of their occurrence be evaluated and minimised during the deposit investigation, mine design and planning, and operational stages of the caving process. These are not trivial issues and can have the most serious of consequences. They demand serious managerial and technical attention (Brown 2012). This paper focuses on the major hazards associated with the caving process which are rockbursts, air blast, subsidence and inrushes. These hazards are experienced during the cave establishment (development, drawbell opening, undercutting), cave propagation, cave breakthrough to surface, and steady state production stages. Measures to manage these risks aiming to reduce their consequences are also discussed.

Globally, safety and productivity are still the main concerns in the mining industry, particularly in operations using caving mining methods. Digital transformation is an approach to run the mining business more safely, profitably and sustainably. However, there are still several issues that are preventing the effective integration across the whole caving process. Digital transformation is the ability to "think and do" the cave mining business differently. The digital era enables not only having a connected mine to make quicker and better decisions to improve safety, productivity and profitability but also influences the organisations to make a transition from a reactive to a proactive, industrialised management approach. This would enable a more informed understanding and therefore increased control of the caving processes. In practice, this transformation will require the caving industry to move from a traditional, experience based, segmented operating model to an agile, integrated, dynamic, business value driven model, fostering a modern digital culture to ensure sustainable cave mining into the future. This paper, written to supplement a keynote address by the author, discusses how digital technologies will help cave mining change the way of doing business to reach new levels of performance across the caving process, particularly in more challenging mining conditions.