title: Spain's greatest and most recent mine disaster.
abstract: On 25 April 1998, the mineral waste retaining wall at the Swedish-owned pyrite mine at Aznalcóllar (Seville, Spain) burst, causing the most harmful environmental and socio-economic disaster in the history of the River Guadiamar basin. The damage was so great that the regional government decided in May 1998 to finance a comprehensive, multidisciplinary research initiative with the objective of eradicating or at least minimising all of the negative social, economic and environmental impacts. This paper utilises a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis to identify eight strategic measures aimed at providing policymakers with key guidelines on implementing a sustainable development model, in a broad sense. Empirical evidence, though, reveals that, to date, major efforts to tackle the negative impacts have centred on environmental concerns and that the socio-economic consequences have not been completely mitigated.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Quantitative Methods and Economic History at Pablo de Olavide University, Spain.
authors.forename: Flor Ma
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Guerrero
authors.forename: Macarena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lozano
authors.forename: José M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Rueda-Cantuche
mesh_terms: D004190:Disasters; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects*; D004782:Environmental Health; D006801:Humans; D007501:Iron / Q000633:toxicity*; D008906:Mining; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D016730:Program Development; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013030:Spain; D013440:Sulfides / Q000633:toxicity*
chemical_list: D013440:Sulfides; C011342:pyrite; D007501:Iron