Techno-economic Evaluation And Social Assessment Of Southern Qinghai Mineral Resources Substituting Region

The rapid economic growth needs consistent supply of mineral resources. As the major mines in middle and eastern China enter old stage gradually and their resources begin to exhaust, the construction of substituting region in the resources-abundant west of China becomes one of the strategies to guarantee the consistent supply of mineral resources. Meanwhile, the exploitation of mineral resources is also part of the West Development Strategy of China.Since the Ministry of Land and Resources set out the Geological Prospecting Project in 1999, 12 mineral resources substituting regions have been determined. In order to establish the methods of conducting the techno-economic evaluation and social assessment of these regions, southern Qinghai substituting region is taken as an example to study in this dissertation.The present exploitation situation of the proved minerals in southern Qinghai substituting region is analyzed systematically, and the reserve of its 12 major minerals is forecasted. On the base of this, the economic value of the proved reserve and the forecasted reserve is evaluated quantitatively by calculating their potential value, and the net benefit of exploiting the mineral resources in the region is calculated, with the cost of the environment recovery being deducted. Finally the aimed minerals and exploration areas are determined. The social and economic situation of the south of Qinghai province is surveyed and systematic social assessment is made on the impact of exploiting mineral resources in the region. Finally the results of the techno-economic evaluation and the social assessment are generalized and some suggestions are put foreword about the exploration and exploitation of the mineral resources. Through the research, the following advances are made.First, the natural environmental factor is introduced into the mineral resources techno-economic evaluation. A model is designed with which the net economic benefit of exploiting mineral resources is calculated with the cost of environment recovery being taken into account. By applying the model, the net economic benefit of exploiting mineral resources in southern Qinghai mineral resources substituting region is calculated, with the cost of environment recovery being deducted.Secondly, the method of social assessment in the mineral resources substituting region is established and the relative indicator system is set up. Under the guidelines of the theories of social assessment and Regional Economics, the social impact of mineral resources exploitation in the region is assessed in the following respects: social environment, natural environment, natural resources, society and economy, social acceptability, etc.Third, the economic evaluation of the whole region and the techno-economic evaluation of the specified deposit are combined. In this way the economic benefits of mineral exploitation in the region is evaluated from both macro-perspective and micro-perspective respectively.In one word, for the first time, the environment factor is evaluated quantitatively in the regional techno-economic evaluation of mineral resources, and a social assessment indicator system is established. All these work is not only important in practice, but is a kind of theoretical exploration and innovation as well.