Assessment of environmental risk for red mud storage facility in China: a case study in Shandong Province

Red mud storage facility (RM-SF) pollution remains a serious problem in China mainly due to the RM’s huge quantity, little recyclability, and high alkalinity. And, there is also a risk of dam failure because almost all RM-SFs are processed by damming. In order to address this challenge and improve the level of risk management, it is necessary to evaluate the environmental risk of RM-SFs systematically. So, this paper firstly designs a comprehensive evaluation index system with a three-level evaluation index in the terms of RM characteristics, RM-SF characteristics, ambient environment of RM-SF, the management of RM-SF, and the application aspect of RM by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. Then, a case of RM-SF from a typical alumina production enterprise is studied according to this system, as is assisted by several experts from different fields when determining the weights of all indicators. The results show that the risk of selected RM-SF primarily depends on the former factors, that is, RM and RM-SF characteristics, while the contributions of the other factors are quite smaller.