Sold-out short course sparks landform design interest
VANCOUVER, BC (December 21, 2022) — After the Landform Design Institute’s sold-out short course, held Nov. 2–4, 2022, in Calgary, Alberta, mining practitioners in Canada and abroad are taking a greater interest in coursework that can improve their knowledge of this burgeoning field.
Since the course concluded, mining practitioners and academic institutions have asked about access to more courses. Plans are underway to create an online course series and, ultimately, a certification program.
Education is one of the pillars of the Institute’s objectives, and the LDI plans to continue working toward producing educational materials that will provide a solid foundation for more formal academic instruction.
The Institute has also begun work on the development of a virtual design basis memorandum (DBM), the core document that guides the work of mines practicing responsible landform design from before mining begins. The DBM is slated to be completed in the fall of 2023.
Meanwhile, LDI members can access any of the 14 video vignettes on landform design produced by the Institute over the past year. Non-members are welcome to visit the LDI website, where they can download a series of infographics, the Landform Design Quarterly newsletter (you can download the latest issue here), and listen to the podcast “Getting Closure.”
In Calgary, the three-day short course covered the major topics practitioners need to familiarize themselves with to get a grounding in the field. Expert lecturers provided an introduction to landscape design, and a overview of physical design approaches, reclamation and cover systems, and construction and monitoring. About a dozen subcategories were addressed under each of these topics by a range of experienced experts.
The presenters included Gord McKenna, founder and chair of the Institute and an expert in landform design with more than 30 years of professional experience; closure specialist Mike O’Kane of Okane Consultants; LDI Technical Advisory Panel member Justin Straker, who specializes in reclamation; and Jerry Vandenberg, also a member of the Technical Advisory Panel and an expert in pit lakes. Aileen Cash covered landform construction and monitoring and maintenance.
On the topic of reclamation, a team from JDS Energy & Mining provided an engaging case history, which is critical to helping practitioners see how landform design actually works.
McKenna and Cash also coordinated a landform design exercise, in which participants broke into groups to devise their own landform designs. McKenna closed out the course with a session on reflections and key learnings and to solicit feedback.