The global importance of and demand for oil shale are currently rapidly growing. Deposits of oil shale are widespread around the world. All this necessitates assessment of the sustainability of existing open-pit and underground mining technologies to improve oil shale mining management.
The aim of the present study is to elaborate a method for assessment of the sustainability of oil shale mining to develop advanced mining technologies on this basis. Sustainability assessment has earlier been applied to two exploited Estonian carbonate rock deposits – dolostone and limestone. It was shown that a three-level matrix monitoring scale gives structured results. This paper considers the applicability of a sustainability assessment matrix to Estonian oil shale mining.
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