A Systems Approach to Sustainable Development through Resource Beneficiation - a Case for System Dynamics Modelling

• Main Author: Maluleke, George T.
• Other Authors: Pretorius, Leon
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Pretoria 2015
• Subjects: UCTD; sami
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2263/45923

The role of Manganese and minerals towards sustainable development in South Africa is a topic that has not been widely researched, despite the country’s dominant endowment of these mineral resources (SAMI, 2009). An alternative approach to evaluate beneficiation opportunities in the Manganese mining value chain as a resource, by investigating dynamic parameters that describe the pattern of sustainable development in the industry’s value chain, was addressed in this research. A systems thinking approach was investigated as a tool to review and solve sustainable development problems in the Manganese resources value chain. The research focused on the application of system dynamics modelling within the systems thinking framework. This was intended to establish a pattern of relationship and causality between the input parameters of the Manganese mining value chain and the key drivers of sustainable development. A system dynamics model was developed based on the primary published works of Forrester (1969, 1971), Schumpeter (1962), Meadows et al (1972) which were most recently reviewed by Meadows et al (2007) in their work on “Thinking in Systems” and Saeed (2010) in his work on “Economic Development, Creative Destruction and Urban Dynamics”. A specific focus on Manganese mining in the Northern Cape’s Kalahari basin was chosen to illustrate the impact of mineral resource beneficiation and the different value chain decisions over a 10-year period, based on the dynamic sensitivities of the selected input parameters. A systems dynamic model was developed, inspired by the works of Meadows et al (2007) in systems thinking to describe the dynamic behaviour of the Manganese mining value chain and its impact on the economic activity of the Northern Cape region of John Taolo Gaetsewe (JTG), over the simulation period. Three value chain scenarios from “upstream mining” through “primary beneficiation” to “secondary beneficiation” of Manganese minerals were simulated on a system dynamics software platform and based upon the same ...