Monitoring System

The drafting of Special Mineral Resources plans and the Surface Mineral Resources Plan is dependant on the availability of reliable basic data, such as the total needs for primary mineral resources in the different industrial and building processes. It is also important to know the import and export movements of the different mineral resources as well as the application and potential of possible alternatives as substitutes to primary minerals.

Therefore, the Flemish Government developed in 2010 a “monitoring system for a sustainable surface mineral resources policy” in cooperation with the Public Flemish Waste Materials Company (OVAM) and the Flemish Institute for Technologic Research (VITO).

Producers, traders and consumers of mineral resources and alternatives are inquired each year after three elements that are required for the design of a sustainable mineral resources planning. These elements are:

• the total need of primary surface minerals
• the import and export flows of surface minerals
• the use of alternative materials.

The combination of all these inquiries will provide an overall picture of market developments on an annual basis. The collected results are published in a publicly accessible annual report.he results are also useful in the framework of sustainable materials management, which is an important subject in Flemish environmental policy. Sustainable materials management seeks to reduce the use of natural resources throughout the life-cycle of materials (independent of whether they are resources, finished products, or waste).