Mining industry faces new technological and economic challenges which need to be overcome in order to raise it to a new technological level in accordance with the ideas of Industry 4.0. Mining companies are searching for new possibilities of optimizing and automating processes, as well as for using digital technology and modern computer software to aid technological processes. Every stage of deposit management requires mining engineers, geologists, surveyors, and environment protection specialists who are involved in acquiring, storing, processing, and sharing data related to the parameters describing the deposit, its exploitation and the environment. These data include inter alia: geometries of the deposit, of the excavations, of the overburden and of the mined mineral, borders of the support pillars and of the buffer zones, mining advancements with respect to the set borders, effects of mining activities on the ground surface, documentation of landslide hazards and of the impact of mining operations on the selected elements of the environment. Therefore, over the life cycle of a deposit, modern digital technological solutions should be implemented in order to automate the processes of acquiring, sharing, processing and analyzing data related to deposit management. In accordance with this idea, the article describes the results of a measurement experiment performed in the Mikoszów open-pit granite mine (Lower Silesia, SW Poland) with the use of mobile LiDAR systems. The technology combines active sensors with automatic and global navigation system synchronized on a mobile platform in order to generate an accurate and precise geospatial 3D cloud of points.

The Lower Silesia area in SW Poland is characterized by a geological structure that is conducive to mining activity. The exploitation of rock raw materials plays an important role in this sector of the economy. By the end of 2017, there were in total approximately 400 current concessions for the exploitation of rock raw materials in the analysed area (Polish Geological Institute, MIDAS database—Management and Protection System of Polish Mineral Resources). The conducted mining activity results in waste, which in the greatest amount occurs in the process of obtaining crushed road and construction aggregates, natural aggregates, carbonate raw materials for the cement and lime industry, as well as stone elements for construction and road engineering. At the end of 2016, the mining plants accumulated 26,569,600 Mg of waste. As part of the European Regions Toward Circular Economy (CircE) project, research was conducted on the volume and composition of the mining waste of rock raw materials in the years 2010–2016 within Lower Silesia. This research used the methods of statistical, descriptive and spatial analysis to identify mining plants with the highest potential for using their wastes. In the course of this study, 6 mining plants with the highest potential of using their waste for industrial production purposes were selected. In order to objectively select these plants, the methodology of qualitative multi-criteria analysis was developed, and 7 criteria were selected for assessing the economic potential of using waste from the mining of rock raw materials. An additional result of this research is a database and graphical presentation of changes in the spatial distribution of generated waste in the Lower Silesia region in the years ranging from 2010 to 2016.

Featured Application: The paper presents a two stage, multicriteria-based methodology for evaluation of mining waste potential use that can be applied to any type of mining waste site. Abstract:The article describes the research on the analysis of the economic use of mining and processing waste produced and stored on the premises of active mining plants exploiting rock raw materials in the context of the reduce-recycle-reuse (3R) concept. To assess the potential economic applications of the investigated wastes, a two-stage methodology based on a multicriteria analysis using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) algorithm was proposed. Preliminary research produced an inventory of active mining plants storing mining and processing waste on their premises (62 locations). Then, preliminary qualitative analysis was carried out to assess mining waste locations at the environmental and social level consistent with the idea of circular economy-CE (20 locations). Next, in the first stage of the multi-criteria analysis, six directions of economic use of the investigated waste were analyzed and their significance was determined. These directions are use in road and railroad construction, construction, agriculture, reclamation and development of post-mining areas, food industry, and storage at landfills of mining and processing waste on the premises of a mining plant. In the result of the assessment of potential economic applications of mining waste, recommendations for directions of economic use were obtained for the six highest classified mining waste sites. The recommendations were determined in the second stage of multi-criteria analysis by deriving the local preferences (waste sites) for the alternatives (waste uses).concept is the optimization of the use of resources in accordance with the so-called 3R principle (reduce-recycle-reuse) [2,3].Territorial scope of the research carried out in the publication concerned the area of Lower Silesia, which is located in the southwest part of Poland (Figure 1). This region is the most interesting in Poland in terms of rich accumulation of rocks with diverse genesis and age. Additionally, over 90% of minerals extracted in Poland for the production of construction and road elements originate from deposits located in the Lower Silesia region [4]. The subject of the research are active mining plants, which extract and process rock raw materials, such as bentonites, dolomites, ceramic and refractory clays, crushed and dimension stones, vein quartz, phylite and mica schists, magnesites, sands, and gravels. The period covered by the study concerned the years 2010-2016. The research method used for the purpose of collecting and analysing the source data was the method of examining documents, consisting of collecting, selecting, describing and interpreting the facts contained in it. The research was limited to establishing the actual state of affairs, which the sources consisted of data archived in the period 2010-2016 from databases of the Marshal's Office, District Mining Office, Poli...