Data assessment for northern mining transportation decision-support models

加拿大北部拥有丰富的自然资源，预计这些资源的开发将成为未来几十年经济增长的主要动力。与此同时，北方的社区和高度脆弱的生态系统正经历着迅速变化的气候带来的不成比例的影响。这些因素给极其昂贵的运输投资决策带来了独特而重大的不确定性，包括那些支持采矿活动的投资。像Agnico Eagle Mines有限公司这样的利益相关者需要高质量的分析工具来为他们在这些敏感的北方环境中运输基础设施的决策过程提供信息。目前支持交通投资规划的分析工具不适合北方地区非常复杂的挑战。在这个项目中，我们打算直接与Agnico Eagle合作，对他们的数据进行评估，以衡量他们的数据是否足够，以支持交通基础设施决策模型。我们还将开发这些模型的初步框架-使用选项分析-定量形式化气候条件，环境影响和自然资源价格对Agnico Eagle运输基础设施决策的随机输入。这些决定可包括在何种条件下（气候条件、环境缓解、资源价格等），一套运输设施可能比另一套运输设施更具成本效益。该模型支持灵活的决策，因为这些不确定性和风险的来源会随着时间的推移而变化。该项目的预期结果是广泛的数据评估和框架，以构建专门为Agnico Eagle在加拿大北部环境下的运输需求而设计的分析工具，特别是将我们的注意力集中在他们的Meadowbank业务上。该项目将量化agnico Eagle如何在高效运营与环境和社会责任之间取得平衡。该项目将为北部采矿运输基础设施分析提供新的应用，并在对加拿大北部至关重要的跨学科领域培养2名HQP。

Northern Canada holds vast natural resources, and developing these resources is projected to be a major driverof economic growth over the next several decades. At the same time, the north's communities and highlyfragile ecosystems are experiencing disproportionate impacts of a rapidly changing climate. These factorsintroduce unique and significant uncertainties into decision-making on enormously costly transportationinvestments, including those that support mining activities. Stakeholders akin to Agnico Eagle Mines Limitedneed high-quality analysis tools to inform their decision-making processes on their transportationinfrastructures in these sensitive northern environments. Current analysis tools to support transportationinvestment planning are unsuited to the northern context's remarkably complex challenges. In this project, weaim to work directly with Agnico Eagle to perform an assessment of their data, in order to gauge thesufficiency of their data to support transportation infrastructure decision models. We will also develop thepreliminary framework of these models - using options analysis - to quantitatively formalize the stochasticinputs of climate conditions, environmental impacts, and natural resource prices on Agnico Eagle'stransportation infrastructure decisions. These decisions could include under what conditions (of climateconditions, environmental mitigation, resource prices, etc.) one set of transportation facilities may be morecost-effective than another. The model supports flexible decisions as these sources of uncertainty and riskchange over time. The expected outcome of this project is an extensive data assessment and framework to buildan analysis tool specifically designed for Agnico Eagle's transportation needs within the northern Canadiancontext, specifically focusing our attention to their Meadowbank operations. The project will quantify howAgnico Eagle can balance efficient operations with environmental and social responsibilities. The project willcontribute a new application for northern mining transportation infrastructure analysis, and train 2 HQP in aninterdisciplinary area of key importance to Canada's north.