Catalogue of example instrumentation and monitoring systems for tailings dams in Australia

New literature, mining regulators, insurance firms, and mining practitioners are calling for increased diligence in the form of real-time monitoring: but what can the industry offer in response? This research establishes a centralisation of instrumentation systems suitable for tailings dams, discussing the specifications, advantages, and disadvantages of each. This paper describes an understanding of dataloggers and sensor nodes, sensor networks, and online monitoring systems critical to the transmission and reception of sensor data across vast and remote site areas. Collaboration with suppliers discovered systems which enable reliable, efficient, and real-time transmission of instrumentation data, ready for interpretation. This paper aims to translate traditionally electrical and systems engineering terminology into a reference base suitable for the broad range of tailings dam practitioners. This reference base is anticipated to help facilitate informed discussions and encourage deployment of appropriate instrumentation systems that are suitable to the practitioner’s short- and long-term intent.