Virtual Reality Tools for Sustainable Mining and Environmental Management

The growing demand for Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) requires mining practices that align with sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles, while mining training must adapt through advanced digital tools. This study presents a reproducible Virtual Excursion (VE) workflow for mining education and environmental management, using 360 panoramic acquisition with XPhase Pro S2/X2 and Insta360 X4 cameras, image stitching in Hugin, enhancement in ACDSee, interactive authoring in Pano2VR 7, and dissemination through the Envi-Stat platform. The analysed scenarios cover the mining life cycle, including underground and surface extraction, processing and conveyor transportation, pit-lake rehabilitation, reforestation, final disposal of non-hazardous sterile material, and in-situ recovery. Beyond immersive visualization, the framework integrates high-resolution panoramic image processing to extract quantitative geometric characteristics of mining features, with a focus on pit lakes, and validates image-based estimates against field surveys and mine-closure documentation. The main benefits are improved spatial understanding, safer pre-fieldwork and safety training, enhanced sustainability literacy, and scalable access to site-specific knowledge. Current limitations include hardware and software costs, the need for high-quality panoramic data and field metadata, specialist skills for content production, possible user discomfort, and the requirement for structured pedagogical adoption. The proposed workflow offers practical directions for integrating VR into mine planning, safety induction, environmental monitoring, closure evaluation, and ESG-compliant training