International trends in mining tailings publications: A descriptive bibliometric study

There are several international cases where tailings deposits have caused irreversible environmental, social, and human life losses. Therefore, these infrastructures have become a priority issue. This article identifies international trends in tailings research using Scopus database, from where 4415 published articles in the last decade were reported. Subsequently, a bibliometric analysis was performed by absolute counts using Bibliometrix R package and Vosyviewer software. We propose dividing the results into three levels: i) descriptive analysis of the publication, ii) scientific relevance, and iii) analytic co-ocurrence. As a result, there is a steady increase in the number of articles published, especially for the period 2015–2020, which can be explained by the ingrowth of work in areas such as Environmental Sciences and Engineering. The most cited articles were published during the years 2010–2015, and the most cited journals are Chemosphere, Science of The Total Environment and Journal of Hazardous Materials. In terms of co-ocurrence we identify the critical position of concepts associated with mining activity and its chemical processes, environmental monitoring, concerns about pollution, and bioremediation. Our work highlights the importance of research produced in countries such as China and Canada while exposing the low productivity in extractive countries in the global south (Chile, Peru, or Indonesia). At the same time, we emphasize the need to diversify research into the governance about mining tailings and their technological remediation.