Original Paper Assessment of Blast-Induced Ground Vibration at Jinduicheng Molybdenum Open Pit Mine Mulalo Innocent Matidza , 1 Zhang Jianhua, 1 Huang Gang, 1,2 and Akisa David Mwangi 1 Received 24 September 2019; accepted 6 January 2020 Ground vibration generated from blasting activities is a major problem in mine open-pit slopes and nearby properties, and it can endanger the inhabitants in the surrounding envi- ronment. To understand better the influence of blasting activities in the open-pit mine, it is important to determine the propagation and attenuation of the blast-induced vibration in open-pit slope. This paper presents a predictive model based on the Sadovsky equation for determining blast-induced ground vibration in the Jinduicheng open-pit mine, Shaanxi province, China. The field observation focused on providing measurements and data col- lected for the wave propagation with the influence of blasting activities. Empirical models were also used for predicting blast-induced ground vibration for comparison with the Sa- dovsky model. Blast design parameters such as maximum charge per delay and distance were considered as input parameters for prediction of blast-induced vibration. Site constants for different empirical equations were taken into consideration when determining the peak particle velocities in the Jinduicheng north slope. The performance indices of R 2 (correlation coefficient), MSE (mean square error), RMSE (root mean square error), MAPE (mean absolute percentage error) and MEDAE (median absolute error) were calculated for the empirical models and the Sadovsky model. The results showed that the Sadovsky model is a more satisfactory model for predicting blast-induced vibration as compared to empirical models. KEY WORDS: Peak particle velocity, Empirical models, Sadovsky model, Ground vibration, Blasting parameters. INTRODUCTION The economic growth of the PeopleÕs Republic of China has led to a continuous demand for development of transport system, infrastructure, power generation (such as hydropower and nuclear power stations), mining and other related industries. Industries such as mining, hydropower station and nuclear power station require a usage of explosives during the developmental stage. Chinese blasting operations utilize approximately 300,000 tons of explosives and 2.5 billion detonators per year (Lu et al. 2012; Zhou et al. 2019). The mining industry utilizes explosives as a mode of rock breakage and rock fragmentation; the Jinduicheng molybdenum (Mo) open-pit mine is being excavated using drilling and blasting procedures. However, despite the pos- itive aspects of blasting, some negative elements also exist such as flyrock, air blast, noise, dust, and blast- induced earthquakes. Several scholars have studied the impact related to ground vibration, flyrock and air blast, which are 1 School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, Hubei, PeopleÕs Republic of China. 2 To whom correspondence should be addressed; e-mail: huang- gang2016@whut.edu.cn Ó 2020 International Association for Mathematical Geosciences Natural Resources Research (Ó 2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-020-09623-5