Aerial drones supporting rehabilitation

Where we mine is just as important as what we mine, and our commitment to sustainability means that right from the beginning we are planning for rehabilitation of areas where we operate. Our rehabilitation starts immediately and is done progressively wherever possible, because it helps to reduce our footprint and minimise our impact on the environment.

At Worsley Alumina in Western Australia, rehabilitation planning took a giant leap in 2017 with the testing of aerial drones to collect rehabilitation performance information. By combining remote sensing techniques with traditional survey methods, we have been able to monitor the environment more closely and get a more accurate picture of our activities. That allows us to plan our rehabilitation performance on a landscape-wide basis and develop an integrated rehabilitation monitoring programme.

If the trial review proves the drone’s value, it could mean that we’ll have more drones providing better rehabilitation planning information in the future.