Modelling residual mine voids

Where the final rehabilitated landform for a mine includes a water-filled residual void, it is necessary to assess how the water body will behave and interact with the surrounding environment. Such an assessment will inform the development of appropriate rehabilitation and management strategies. A variety of modelling approaches are currently used to predict the water quality and hydrology of residual voids, each with its own set of assumptions and limitations. The Office of the Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner undertook this work to describe leading practices for residual void modelling.

Publications

Implications for leading practice

• Modelling residual mine voids for rehabilitation planning, December 2025 (PDF, 208.2KB) .
  This Implications for Leading Practice document distils the work undertaken and presents our views on leading practice approaches to modelling residual mine voids for rehabilitation.

Technical papers

• Review of current approaches to model residual mine voids for rehabilitation planning, March 2023 (PDF, 676.8KB) .
  This Technical Paper is a review of current mine void modelling practices in Queensland and comments on the advantages and disadvantages of available modelling approaches.

• Approaches for leading practice modelling of residual mine voids for rehabilitation planning, March 2023 (PDF, 516.6KB) .
  This Technical Paper describes leading practice mine void modelling approaches. The paper covers issues such as project planning, conceptual model development, model selection, scenario testing, deciding appropriate timeframes for prediction, and defining suitable modelling outputs.

• Applying leading practice modelling of residual mine voids for mine rehabilitation planning, March 2023 (PDF, 734.0KB) .
  This Technical Paper provides step-by-step guidance describing how to implement leading practices for mine void modelling.

We regularly review our leading practice advice, which can result in updates to our publications. To access superseded versions of our publications, visit the Queensland Government’s library catalogue.