Focusing on Water with Dr. Nadja Kunz
Water is one of the most pressing and persistent challenges in mining—and few researchers are as attuned to that complexity as Dr. Nadja Kunz. As co-lead of BRIMM’s Water Stewardship Theme, Kunz brings a multidisciplinary approach to managing water risks, helping the industry navigate the delicate balance between operational needs, environmental concerns, and community impacts.
“There’s always a water-related problem at a mine,” says Kunz. “It just depends on what kind of problem it is. Depending on where the mine is located, you can have issues of water scarcity, or you might have issues of flooding, or somewhere in between.”
Since its launch in 2021, BRIMM’s Water Stewardship Theme has explored how too much or too little water can disrupt mining operations, threaten ecosystems, and leave lasting legacies in surrounding communities. Kunz helped lead the theme from the outset and now co-leads with Dr. Roger Beckie, whose expertise in geochemistry and water quality complements Kunz’s focus on engineering and policy.
“A lot of my work is focused on what kinds of legacy issues mining leaves—and a lot of those issues are often water-related, especially here in B.C.,” she explains. “I also adopt a multi-stakeholder approach to the research that I’m involved in, and not just stakeholders, but rights holders—and finding opportunities to integrate Indigenous rights holders into research programs.”
Kunz’s research has spanned water-scarce regions like Chile—where transporting water to mine sites is expensive and resource-intensive—as well as wet climates in Canada, where climate change is amplifying flood risks. “Generally, we are finding that lots of Canadian mines are actually getting wetter,” she says. “Higher precipitation, higher temperatures leading to melting permafrost or increased streamflow. These kinds of issues mean that water abundance can be a real challenge for a lot of projects as well.”
To address both ends of the spectrum, Kunz is exploring how to improve implementation of innovations such as advanced tailings dewatering and dry stack tailings. But she’s quick to note that technological fixes are only part of the solution. “When we talk about innovation in mining, it’s not just about having new, really exciting technologies, but also about improving the way decisions are made in companies,” she says. “There are a lot of technologies we have in the industry that we just need to make a business case for. We need to show that they are economic choices.”
This principle guided a recent project with PhD student Benjamin Cox, who developed techno-economic models to demonstrate how water- and tailings-related technologies could make financial sense, particularly in water-scarce locations. Other ongoing work includes a collaboration with UBC’s Data Science Institute using natural language processing tools to mine historical regulatory data that can help better environmental oversight.
Whether investigating emerging technologies or rethinking how existing ones are applied, Kunz’s work with BRIMM is grounded in connection—between researchers, industry, policy-makers, and communities. “It’s about transforming how decisions are made,” she says, “and making sure those decisions are based on evidence, equity, and long-term thinking.”
