This book focuses on instilling a safety culture and fostering the ability to recognize and manage health and safety responsibilities and requirements. It details effective and safety management systems and concentrates on safety and health hazard anticipation, identification, evaluation, and control.

The Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT) of the U. S. Department of Energy commissioned the National Research Council (NRC) to undertake a study on required technologies for the Mining Industries of the Future Program to complement information provided to the program by the National Mining Association. Subsequently, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health also became a sponsor of this study, and the Statement of Task was expanded to include health and safety. The overall objectives of this study are: (a) to review available information on the U.S. mining industry; (b) to identify critical research and development needs related to the exploration, mining, and processing of coal, minerals, and metals; and (c) to examine the federal contribution to research and development in mining processes.

In Mining Engineering operations, mines act as sources of constant danger and risk to the miners and may result in disasters unless mining is done with safety legislations and practices in place. Mine safety engineers promote and enforce mine safety and health by complying with the established safety standards, policies, guidelines and regulations. These innovative and practical methods for ensuring safe mining operations are discussed in this book including technological advancements in the field. It will prove useful as reference for engineering and safety professionals working in the mining industry, regulators, researchers, and students in the field of mining engineering.

Historically, the mining industry has had a high incidence of work related injury and disease, and of disasters involving multiple fatalities. It also faces OHS challenges far exceeding those confronting most other industry sectors.Mine safety legislation can play an important role in meeting those challenges. Although regulation is never likely to be the entire answer, good regulation not only brings laggards up to a minimum legal standard, it also encourages, rewards and facilitates leaders in going beyond them. Bad regulation, in contrast, constrains good enterprises from taking the initiative to improve OHS, while failing to deter bad ones.This book describes mine safety legislation in the "mining states" and analyses its strengths and weaknesses. It also examines the broader policy questions of how best to design, implement and enforce mine safety regulation.It argues that substantial reform will be necessary not only in setting standards, but also in their implementation, if further OHS improvements are to be achieved. This implies substantial changes in the way the mine safety inspectorates go about their tasks: in how they administer and enforce the law; and in the circumstances in which they choose to prosecute. It also requires the nurturing of a degree of trust between employers and workers (individually and collectively) and between both these parties and the mines inspectorates, that has been substantially lacking in recent years.

The consideration of human factors issues is vital to the mining industry. As in other safety-critical domains, human performance problems constitute a significant threat to system safety, making the study of human factors an important field for improving safety in mining operations. The primary purpose of this book is to provide the reader with a much-needed overview of human factors within the mining industry, in particular to understand the role of human error in mine safety, explaining contemporary risk management and safety systems approaches. The approach taken is multidisciplinary and holistic, based on a model of the systems of work in the mining industry domain. The ingredients in this model include individual operators, groups/teams, technology/equipment, work organisation and the physical environment. Throughout the book, topics such as human error and safety management are covered through the use of real examples and case studies, allowing the reader to see the practical significance of the material presented while making the text rigorous, useful and enjoyable. Understanding Human Error in Mine Safety is written for professionals in the field, researchers and students of mining engineering, safety or human factors.