Effect Of Climate Change on a Monolithic Desulphurized Tailings Cover

Climate change is expected to impact the stability and functionality of several geotechnical infrastructures. Soil covers are one of the main classes of geotechnical infrastructure which would exhibit pronounced changes in its functional performance due to climate change. It is therefore imperative to study the effects of climate change on soil covers. The current study focuses on the effects of climate change on soil covers over tailings (tailings cover) at a site in Northern Ontario, Canada. Covers were analyzed using historical and future climate datasets using numerical modelling techniques. In addition to climate change, effects of changing hydraulic properties were also quantified. The results of this research show that fine grained covers performed better under adverse climate change conditions as compared to coarse grained covers. However, the performance of fine covers will deteriorate with time due to evolutionary changes in their hydraulic properties.