Experience sharing on impact assessments of mining dam disasters, addressing community, environmental and social impacts, vulnerability, accountability, recovery and disaster prevention.
My professional experience includes working on the two largest mining dam disasters in Brazil: the Fundão dam failure in Mariana, in 2015, and the Córrego do Feijão dam failure in Brumadinho, in 2019. These experiences showed me how impact assessment changes in contexts of disaster, uncertainty, grief and institutional crisis.
In both cases, the impacts extended far beyond immediate physical damage. They affected lives, livelihoods, communities, ecosystems, cultural heritage, public health, local economies and trust in institutions. Assessments therefore needed to consider differentiated vulnerabilities, cumulative and long-term impacts, justice, accountability, reparation and future risks.
The work also highlighted the challenge of balancing urgency with methodological rigor, transparency and meaningful participation. Data were often incomplete or disputed, while affected communities required timely information and action. Assessments had to be interdisciplinary, adaptive and sensitive to trauma, while avoiding practices that could further harm or exclude affected people.
These experiences reinforced that post-disaster impact assessment is not simply an accelerated form of conventional assessment. It must support emergency response and recovery, inform accountability and reparation, strengthen prevention and help rebuild relationships among institutions, companies and communities. They also demonstrated the importance of integrating disaster risk reduction, human rights, cumulative impacts and participation throughout the assessment process.
Senior Environmental & Social (E&S) Specialist with 20 years of experience, including the disaster recovery management of the Mariana and Brumadinho mining dam disasters.