Securing Final and Border Slopes in the Open-Pit Lignite Mines of the Rhenish Mining District from the Perspective of the Mining Authority

Abstract

The Rhenish mining district in North Rhine-Westphalia has a deposit volume of 35 billion tons of economically extractable reserves; thus, making it one of the most significant lignite deposits in Germany and Europe. Over more than 100 years, a mining industry has evolved which is concentrated in the three large-scale open-pit mines Garzweiler, Hambach, and Inden of the mining company RWE Power AG today. Approximately 100 million tons of lignite are mined every year and used primarily to generate electricity.