Quantification and management of rockfall risk in opencast quarrying activities

Rockfalls during quarrying activities are among the most critical risks associated with the various kinds of geological instabilities. Nevertheless, very few tools are available to help designers and managers correctly define these risk conditions in a rational way and to quantify the advantages that can be obtained using suitable prevention measures. For this purpose, taking into account the ‘‘Prevention through Design’’ approach, it is necessary to weigh the various parameters that are involved and to define the most important factors, that is, the ones that have the most influence on rockfall phenomena. A risk evaluation system that is able to support decision makers in the critical rockfall risk assessment phase and offer them the updated information that is necessary for a continuous and dynamic operation design during exploitation activities is presented and discussed here.