Virginia Rodríguez is an expert in the field of mining wastes management. She has more than 20 years of experience in the management of mining waste facilities, risk assessment, environmental characterization of mining wastes (including related geochemical processes), soil characterization in orphan mining lands and rehabilitation. Since 2018, her work has increasingly focused on evaluating the Spanish abandoned mining wastes as a potential source of secondary raw materials, including critical raw materials. She has participated in several research grants within the framework of circular economy initiatives from national projects (TI-RRES, RESET) and international programmes (GSEU, SCIMIN-CRM, SCRREEN3, EULACRM). In this latest project, in cooperation with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, she coordinates the workpackage on the mapping of mining waste and the assessment of the potential for the recovery of critical raw materials. She has also participated in projects at the national (SARAI, FITOBIO) and international level (MINLAND, M4ShaleGas) in the fields of environmental risk characterization and mining-environmental planning of extractive activity, as well as the rehabilitation of areas degraded by mining.
She is involved in technological support contracts with the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITERD) and other regional mining authorities related to the sustainable management of mineral raw materials.
She currently participates in the implementation of the I Action Plan for the Sustainable Management of Mineral Raw Materials and the Spanish National Exploration Programme 2026-2030.
She serves as a member of international expert groups: the Mineral Resources Expert Group (MREG) of EuroGeoSurveys (EGS) and the Mining Environmental Liabilities Expert Group (GEPAM) of the Ibero-American Association of Geological and Mining Studies (ASGMI), where she has been appointed coordinator of the subgroup on mining waste reuse.
