923 Dry-stack TSFs in these regions operate at large scale—including high-throughput facilities with truck or conveyor-based deposition—reflecting both regulatory encouragement and economic necessity. 2.3.2 North America & Canada (Regulatory Transparency And Cost Reporting) The (Cox et al. Elsevier 2022) financial analysis highlights how technical reporting frameworks such as NI 43-101 in Canada historically offered limited granularity in tailings cost disclosure. This opacity contributed to a bias toward low-CAPEX wet tailings options because long-term costs were not transparently reported. The study argues that better regulatory transparency is needed to ensure operators internalize the true lifecycle costs—including closure and perpetual care—of TSFs. While not a regulation per se, this evolving financial reporting environment is pushing operators to consider alternative tailings strategies that reduce long-term liabilities, aligning indirectly with GISTM’s objectives. 2.3.3 Australia (Focus On Closure And Landform Stability) In Western Australia, life-cycle cost analyses (Carneiro & Fourie 2019) show that regulatory and social pressures around closure, water use, and land disturbance are shifting expectations around TSF acceptability. Closure performance—particularly the duration and cost of post-closure monitoring—has become a decisive factor in evaluating tailings strategies. Regulatory processes also increasingly emphasize proactive rehabilitation and minimize residual long-term risk. This shift has created a regulatory climate where operators must justify why they are not choosing lower-risk alternatives such as thickened, paste, or filtered tailings. 2.4 Industry Trend Toward Reduced-Risk, Reduced-Water Tailings Systems Several documents highlight a consistent trend: regulators, insurers, investors, and communities increasingly expect mine operators to adopt tailings solutions that reduce water content and minimize the potential for catastrophic failure. Fitton’s review (Paste 2024) identifies thickened discharge and filter stacking as the most viable above-ground, dam-reduced or dam-less storage options currently available, based on both performance record and the ability to avoid failure modes associated with large wet impoundments. The paper also notes that even though geotextile or novel dam-less technologies have been proposed, they lack sufficient data for regulatory or operational confidence at this stage. Meanwhile, How to Make Filtered Tailings Feasible underscores how regulatory tightening and water scarcity are accelerating investment in high-throughput filtration solutions. Mines that previously relied on conventional slurry are now reassessing the feasibility of partial or full filtration, driven by permitting challenges, ESG expectations, and water cost escalation. Together, these perspectives illustrate a broad industry movement where regulators increasingly expect: • Lower water content in deposited tailings • Reduced reliance on large dams • Improved long-term stability and closure performance • Integrated ESG and transparency practices 2.5 Regulatory Influence on Co-Disposal Approaches Beyond dewatering, regulators are also encouraging more integrated waste solutions. Co-disposal and co-mixing technologies are gaining attention as a way to simultaneously address tailings storage, waste rock management, and geochemical stability. The co-disposal studies (Palmer et al.) demonstrate that engineered blends of tailings and waste rock can reduce oxidation potential and improve material stability—factors directly relevant to permitting and closure approvals. Regulators favour solutions that reduce ARD risk and minimize long-term monitoring
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