GoldSim simulation

The use of GoldSim simulation software to support integrated water management on mine sites

Lloyd Townley

Sim­u­la­tion mod­el­ling remains a mys­tery for many pro­fes­sion­als whose train­ing does not include math­em­at­ics and pro­gram­ming. This work­shop will help par­ti­cipants to under­stand and trust sim­u­la­tion mod­el­ling for prob­lem-solv­ing. Gold­Sim is the world’s most widely used soft­ware for sim­u­lat­ing water, solute and mass bal­ances on mine sites, to sup­port quant­it­at­ive risk-based integ­rated water man­age­ment through­out the pro­ject pipeline: from con­cep­tu­al and feas­ib­il­ity stud­ies to oper­a­tions, expan­sion and clos­ure.

One day is just long enough to provide an intro­duc­tion to how Gold­Sim mod­els are con­struc­ted and run (“Gold­Sim for Begin­ners”), but also to help those respons­ible for water man­age­ment onsite to under­stand what con­sult­ants may be offer­ing (“Gold­Sim for Man­agers”). Bring­ing poten­tial ser­vice pro­viders and poten­tial users of mod­el­ling ser­vices togeth­er will enhance the learn­ing by both groups.

Morn­ing: What is integ­rated water man­age­ment? What kinds of prob­lems need and can be addressed by sim­u­la­tion mod­el­ling, at all stages in the pro­ject pipeline? What is Gold­Sim? Intro­duc­tion to Gold­Sim “ele­ments”, sim­u­lat­ing a dynam­ic water bal­ance with mul­tiple stor­ages, design­ing dash­boards and using Play­er files. Examples of types of Gold­Sim mod­els developed at dif­fer­ent stages in the pro­ject pipeline. Q&A.

After­noon: Two par­al­lel themes for begin­ners and man­agers. How can Gold­Sim rep­res­ent uncer­tainty in mod­el para­met­ers and for­cing?  Run­ning and inter­pret­ing exist­ing mod­els (examples provided). Q&A.

Expec­ted out­comes: All par­ti­cipants will gain new under­stand­ing of integ­rated water man­age­ment and the Gold­Sim devel­op­ment envir­on­ment. Par­ti­cipants will learn some basics, and also how Gold­Sim can be coupled with oth­er soft­ware, such as PHREEQC, MODFLOW and FEFLOW.

Mater­i­als: Each par­ti­cipant should bring a note­book com­puter (Win­dows 10 or 11). Each user will be giv­en a tem­por­ary licence for Gold­Sim 15.0. A num­ber of exist­ing mod­els will be provided as .gsm (edit­able) mod­els and as .gsp (play­er) files.