Growing social awareness of the need to adequately treat mining waste in order to protect the environment has led to an increase in the research in this field. The aim of this study was to analyze the dynamics of the research focused on mining waste and its sustainable management on a worldwide scale from 1988 to 2017. A systematic review and a bibliometric analysis of 3577 articles were completed. The results show that research into mining waste has increased, with studies focusing on waste management accounting for almost 40% of the total. The most productive journals in this field were Applied Geochemistry and Science of the Total Environment. The five most productive countries were the United States, Canada, Spain, Australia, and China. Works on the sustainable management of mining waste were in the minority, but it is an area of research that has considerable potential given the growing social awareness of the environmental repercussions of mining activities and the demands for increasingly sustainable practices. The findings of this study could prove useful for studies into mine waste, as they depict a global view of this line of research.

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la evolución del nivel de vida en Alcoy a través de indicadores monetarios y no crematísticos del bienestar y conocer el impacto que la reforma sanitaria tuvo en las condiciones de vida de la población. Para ello se ha reconstruido una serie de salarios reales, una de consumo de calorías y otra de gasto per cápita en la reforma sanitaria. Se ha contrastado la información que proporciona salario real y nutrición, y hemos comparado ambas series con mortalidad y estatura, mostrando una falta de correlación que evidencia la existencia de urban penalty en la ciudad. Finalmente, el contraste entre el gasto público per cápita en la reforma sanitaria con la mortalidad y la talla, con una altísima correlación, revela que la reforma sanitaria fue causa necesaria pero no suficiente para superar la urban penalty y elevar el nivel de vida de la población.

The objective of this study was to analyze research trends in the field of sustainable management of metals on a global level between 1993 and 2017. To do so, a bibliometric analysis was carried out on a total of 6967 articles. The results revealed the growing interest in this research field, particularly over the last five year-period during which 63% of all articles were published. The three journals in which most articles had been published were the Journal of Cleaner Production, ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, and Chemsuschem. The countries that published the most articles were China, the United States, India, Germany, and the United Kingdom. A sizeable network of collaboration has been established between countries for the joint publication of studies. The main lines of research have been focused on metal decontamination in water and soil, waste management oriented towards reuse and recycling, and the innovation of processes for cleaner and more efficient production. The results revealed the need for comprehensive studies that integrate different disciplines within the same analytical framework, and to promote research that contributes to the different dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic, and social).

Many studies carried out on the evolution of the standard of living have shown that it is advisable to use several indicators as there is no single indicator that reflects all of the dimensions of well-being or that does so without incurring value judgements. Following this line of research, this study examines the well-being of the workers of Alcoy during the industrialisation process using four indicators: real wages, nutrition, life expectancy and height. As happened in other European industrialized regions some decades before, between 1870 and the end of the nineteenth century we can observe a "puzzle" as two indicators point to an increase in the standard of living and the other two reveal the opposite. The "puzzle" later disappears because from the beginning of the twentieth century to 1930 the four indicators show that well-being increased.

Mining activities cause serious pollution problems that affect health and the environment. This paper focuses on the environmental and biological effects that mining activity had on the population living and working in the Riotinto-Nerva area in the last third of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, when this area accounted for approximately 10% of world copper production. To do so, we explore the social, technological, and scientific responses to environmental pollution caused by mining extraction in this area during industrialisation. Second, we analyse welfare indicators, such as the heights of conscripts and mortality rates, so as to examine the social effects of the mining activity. Third, municipal health and education expenditures are examined to study the intervention made by the local authorities to address the welfare problems caused by the mining work and environment. Finally, we examine whether the health policy had positive effects on the health of the population after the negative external effects of copper mining in this area had been mitigated. The findings show that the negative impacts of copper exploitation on the environment and welfare could only be diminished using health policies to combat this kind of urban penalty.