Natural Disasters in Industrial Areas

Abstract

Simulations of the environmental accidents related to the chemical hazard were performed in order to estimate the contamination triggered or caused by natural disasters occurrence in the area heavily loaded with passive hazardous waste deposits. The mining and metallurgy waste deposits, when being exposed to the extreme weather conditions and droughts are scattered on the wider areas, and washed down by the floods, creating erosion ditches along the river banks, and penetrating into the deeper layers of soil. For this purpose the waste materials characterizations were performed by using modern instrumental techniques, considering the heterogeneous nature of the waste. The screening tools are used to estimate the level of air contamination in different climatic conditions, and the simulation of the movement of water and variable solutes to predict the soil contamination along the depth column related to the river flows. The modeling can’t replace the regular monitoring, but can help determine the regularity, frequency and location of the probes for measurements, and raise the red flag with the authorities. Finally, Application of intelligent Multi-Criteria Analysis has been performed for the purpose of ranking the degree of negative impact on the environment of tailing ponds. Analysis is performed for five tailing ponds of MMCC (Mining Metallurgy Chemical Combine) “Trepča”, whereby two of the ponds are active and three inactive. In order to achieve the most objective results, the AHP and PROMETHEE methods were applied.