1665 resilience. This weight-of-evidence approach supports a more robust evaluation of ecological risk significance (U.S. EPA, 1998). 3. SITE-SCALE APPLICATIONS The application of human health and ecological risk assessment as a decision-support tool for mine closure planning is supported by well-documented international experience, as well as by recent applications in the Peruvian context. These cases demonstrate the value of a prospective, staged approach—closure, post-closure, and future use—for guiding closure design and remediation decisions within a risk-based management framework. 3.1 International experiences A representative example is the Ranger Uranium Mine (Australia), where an integrated human health and ecological risk assessment was implemented with a time horizon of up to 10,000 years, although using a methodology different from that described above. The assessment combined long-term environmental monitoring data, ecological response studies, and solute transport modeling, enabling the prioritization of source control measures and water treatment strategies. A distinctive feature of this case was the explicit incorporation of Indigenous cultural use scenarios, including traditional consumption of local resources. This approach allowed closure criteria to be aligned with the social and cultural expectations of the surrounding territory (Iles & Rissik, 2022). Similarly, at the Argyle Diamond Mine (Australia), risk assessment was applied to evaluate the proposed pit lake as a closure component. The assessment indicated low risks to human and ecological receptors, considering site access restrictions, habitat characteristics, and exposure pathways. These results supported the validation of the pit lake as a long-term water management structure and informed the definition of monitoring and adaptive management criteria consistent with closure objectives (McCullough & Sturgess, 2020; Rio Tinto, 2020). In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has incorporated risk‑based decision‑making as a central element in the cleanup, revitalization, and reuse of abandoned mine lands. The integration of future land‑use considerations into remediation planning is recognized to accelerate environmental risk reduction, ensuring that cleanup actions protect human health and the environment while also supporting viable reuse opportunities (U.S. EPA, 2004). 3.2 Application of the approach in the Peruvian context In Peru, WSP Peru’s contaminated sites team has applied risk assessment methodologies in mining projects entering closure phases, incorporating prospective analyses across three stages: closure, post-closure, and future use. This staged application enables differentiation of receptors, exposure pathways, and contaminant profiles according to evolving site conditions and anticipated land uses. Most mining sites in Peru are located in high-Andean regions, where local communities engage in traditional agricultural and livestock activities and maintain a strong dependence on land and water resources. These conditions result in heightened social and environmental sensitivity to both current and residual mining-related contamination and require evaluation approaches that explicitly consider subsistence practices, differentiated exposure patterns, and historically shaped risk perceptions. Within this context, stage-specific risk assessment has required clear differentiation of relevant human receptors. During closure and post-closure, on-site receptors (workers) generally present well-defined exposure parameters associated with controlled work activities. In contrast, off-site receptors introduce higher levels of uncertainty related to variability in productive activities, water sources, and local food consumption. This uncertainty increases significantly under future-use scenarios due to the inherent spatial
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