Social impacts of bauxite mining and refining: a review

This article presents an extensive review of scientific publications focused on how the impacts of bauxite mining and refining have been investigated. This includes results on which types of impacts have been addressed in scientific publications and details concerning social impacts in the years 2010‒2020. The analysis reveals that while environmental impacts are most prominent in academic publications, social impacts have been increasingly investigated in recent years. Between 2011 and 2020, there have been 14 publications covering social impacts, compared to eight publications from 1981‒2010. Focusing on social impacts, the present study finds a range of impacts including access to resources, impacts on landscape, economic impacts (e.g., job creation, local support programmes and infrastructure creation) and public unrest. The review also emphasises the importance of considering the context of social impacts and how impacts are distributed between social groups. These findings are useful for consideration in future impact assessment practices as well as furthering research in the intersection between mining and impact assessment.