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EPISODE · Sep 21, 2026 · 43 MIN

Mines With PlanetSapling

from Geospatial FM · host Wilfred Waters

Ankur Shah, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankur-s-803497126/, is founder and CEO of PlanetSapling (https://planetsapling.com/). He talks us through a dataset of 3,000+ mines he's found the location of, and ownership information about, worldwide. He also takes us through related analyses he's been doing, such as with nature data company Cecil (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mineral-supply-chain-nature-risk-screening-cecil-planetsapling-7rqmc/). Finally, we turn our attention to the problem of mismanaged mine tailings storage facilities. Or tailings dams. Every year there is a notable collapse of one. An example he gives is from last year where a Sino-Metals Leach Zambia tailings dam collapsed in Zambia. Toxic waste hit the Mwambashi River. This flows into the Kafue River and 60% of Zambians live in its river basin. Roughly 45% of Zambia's population relies directly on the Kafue River for their drinking water. That is 10 million people. Join us today to contribute to the development of a global, authoritative, continuously updated dataset of tailings dam boundaries. Your expertise is sought in creating it, then standing up a tailings dam runout modelling engine. Its outputs regarding predicted lives lost and critical infrastructure damage will incentivise appropriate action by leaders. Or discipline of those leaders by the population.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Sep 21, 2026

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Mines With PlanetSapling

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