Integrated framework assessment of water reuse feasibility in mining

Water scarcity, increasing regulatory pressure, and growing societal demands for sustainable resource management have intensified the need for alternative water sources in the mining sector. Treated municipal wastewater represents a potentially viable option; however, its implementation remains constrained by fragmented regulatory frameworks, technical uncertainties, and economic limitations. This study proposes an integrated assessment framework to evaluate the feasibility of treated wastewater reuse in mining operations through a structured approach that operationalizes regulatory alignment, technical compatibility with mineral processing circuits, and economic viability. Unlike conventional binary assessments, this framework introduces a 'veto logic' within a tridimensional feasibility space, ensuring that critical technical or legal barriers are not overlooked by simple mathematical averaging. Based on normalized indicators, reuse scenarios are classified into four outcome categories: Fully Feasible, Conditionally Feasible, Economically Constrained, and Structurally Unfeasible. The framework's utility is demonstrated through a proof-of-concept application using real water quality data, contrasting municipal wastewater reuse against internal acid mine drainage recycling. The results demonstrate that feasibility is highly context-dependent, with external municipal sources often outperforming internal recycling due to lower mineralization and higher regulatory stability. This study contributes a reproducible methodological tool for resilient water management, supporting the reduction of freshwater abstraction and alignment with global sustainability objectives.