Representative population survey for three former German coalfields on the perception of mine water

sponsored by Forum Bergbau and Wasser in the Stifterverband

Project Partners

• Dr. Stephanie Walter (Hochschule Mittweida)
• Elke Mugova (THGA Bochum, TUBAFG Freiberg)
• Prof. Dr. Christian Wolkersdorfer (TUT Tshwane University of Technology)

Abstract

During the dialogue event of the “Forum Bergbau and Wasser ” in February 2019 in Saarbrücken, it became apparent that the communication between scientists, companies and the public needs to be further developed. Quite a few of the terms and contents that are important in connection with mine water and mine flooding seem to be perceived differently outside of companies and science.

The board of trustees of the “Mining and Water Forum” therefore discussed initiating a survey during the course of the event in order to identify deficits in the communication of content and terms. Since these occur in a similar way with the mine floods in South Africa, this seems to be a general problem in the communication of scientific and business decisions. Consequently, this survey initiative came from Board of Trustees member Prof. Christian Wolkersdorfer.

The aim of the survey is to uncover communication deficits in the three mining regions of Saarland, the Ruhr area and Ibbenbüren on the queried topics of mine water, raw material extraction and renewable energy. The question is what information has reached the population and where, what language is understood and used, and what access to information is used by the population. From the regional differences of the answers, it can be deduced after evaluation of the survey where which measures should be taken to increase the understanding and acceptance of the population towards mining and mine water.

A representative set of randomly selected 3,000 people representing about 731,000 people in Saarland, 230,000 in Ibbenbüren and 4.9 million in the Ruhr area are asked about 20 open-ended questions. All questions are asked by a professional company via online and telephone survey, the quality is checked by them and the results are evaluated using standard statistical methods for evaluating representative surveys. It is a structured interview, partly with predefined answers, and the questions are divided into four categories altogether: Interest in the subject, Opinion, Level of information, Personal data. In order not to cause any bias in the opinion, the survey was discussed only among the Board of Trustees and the survey company, and the public was not informed in advance.

Between March 27 and June 19, 2020, 1527 people were surveyed online and by telephone, which is a statistically relevant sample.

Results

One of the results is that the Bpopulation views the term mine flooding slightly more positively than mine water rebound, but both terms evoke negative perceptions overall. Overall, the population in the Ibbenbüren coalfield is more open-minded about mine flooding than in Saarland.