Twentieth century variability of surface humidity as the climate change indicator in Kraków (Southern Poland)

Air humidity is an element that plays an important role among meteorological processes within the atmosphere; however, the variety of humidity indices makes the global view of air moisture changes difficult. Long-term variability of air humidity in Kraków was examined by time-series (1901–2000) analysis of vapour pressure and saturation deficit values and their characteristic days with the background of temperature and saturated vapour pressure changes. Long-term variability of air humidity in Kraków has been visible above all in variations of saturation deficit. It should be connected with the contemporary temperature growth and the city development as the atmospheric water vapour content (described by vapour pressure) becomes relatively stable (with no significant tendencies). The parameter showed well-marked trends over the examined period. The growth of saturation deficit values predominated in the warm half of a year (above all in August: an increase in SD value by 3.0 hPa per century). Apart from atmospheric circulation variability, gradual rise in the number of inhabitants and higher development density contributed to the decline in the city’s air humidity; however, the causes of changes in air humidity should be also attributed to natural factors, mainly to variation of air circulation reinforced by the operation of anthropogenic factors. Using air humidity as the indicator, the results that confirm climatic fluctuations in central Europe in the twentieth century obtained earlier were verified and some new aspects of present climate change were given.     

A review of geochemical background concepts and an example using data from Poland

One of the most crucial issues of recent environmental sciences is the topic of background concentrations of elements and organic compounds in various abiotic and biotic systems. The relationship between natural and anthropogenically altered concentrations of chemical species is a question that involves many implications in the geosciences, environmental and biological sciences, toxicology, and other related disciplines. This is especially important when interpreting geochemical and biogeochemical anomalies of toxic elements and/or organic compounds in various media. To better understand the potential impact of hazardous substances in the environment, we must become more familiar with their spatial and temporal distribution and with their behavior under different physico-chemical and biotic conditions. This review presents an assessment of the geochemical background concept as used by various authors. Different assumptions and approaches to this topic are presented, including direct, statistical, and integrated methods. Based on the results derived from geochemical and biogeochemical studies performed in selected forest ecosystems of Poland, an integrated method is presented. As a consequence of data processing, a normal distribution of data points was obtained using an iterative 2σ-technique. This method of estimating geochemical background is feasible and can be used for setting environmental quality standards or for studying the impact of anthropogenic pollution sources on the environment.     

Provenance implications of Th–U–Pb electron microprobe ages from detrital monazite in the Carboniferous Upper Silesia Coal Basin, Poland

This paper reports the results of CHIME (chemical Th–U–Pb isochron method) dating of detrital monazites from Carboniferous sandstones in the Upper Silesia Coal Basin (USCB). A total of 4739 spots on 863 monazite grains were analyzed from samples of sandstone derived from six stratigraphic units in the sedimentary sequence. Age distributions were identified in detrital monazites from the USCB sequence and correlated with specific dated domains in potential source areas. Most monazites in all samples yielded ca. 300–320 Ma (Variscan) ages; however, eo-Variscan, Caledonian and Cadomian ages were also obtained. The predominant ages are comparable to reported ages of certain tectonostratigraphic domains in the polyorogenic Bohemian Massif (BM), which suggests that various crystalline lithologies in the BM were the dominant sources of USCB sediments.     

Proton microprobe for chemical dating of monazite

Although quantitative chemical analysis by proton microprobe has become an established technique, it has been rarely applied to problems in the earth sciences. The method, having lower detection limit (better than 10 ppm for U, Th and Pb) and higher spatial resolution than electron microprobe (typically 1 μm vs 3 μm), can be successfully used in geology. Here, we present a procedure for the chemical dating of monazite, (REE)PO₄, by proton microprobe. The procedure is compared with electron probe microanalysis technique (EPMA).     

Classification and regression tree theory application for assessment of building damage caused by surface deformation

A framework of applying the classification and regression tree theory (CART) for assessing the concrete building damage, caused by surface deformation, is proposed. The prognosis methods used for approximated building hazard estimation caused by continuous deformation are unsatisfactory. Variable local soil condition, changing intensity of the continuous deformation and variable resistance of the concrete buildings require the prognosis method adapted to the local condition. Terrains intensely induced by surface deformation are build-up with hundreds of building, so the method of their hazard estimation needs to be approximated and relatively fast. Therefore, promising might be addressing problems of reliable building damage risk assessment by application of classification and regression tree. The presented method based on the classification and regression tree theory enables to establish the most significant risk factors causing the building damage. Chosen risk factors underlie foundation for the concrete building damage prognosis method, which was caused by the surface continuous deformation. The established method enabled to assess the severity of building damage and was adapted to the local condition. High accuracy of shown approach is validated based on the independent data set of the buildings from the similar region. The research presented introduces the CART to determination of the risk of building damage with the emphasis on the grade of the building damage. Since presented method bases on the observations of the damages from the previous subsidence, the method might be applied to any local condition, where the previous subsidence is known.     

Impact of forecasted land use changes on flood risk in the Polish Carpathians

Flooding is a major environmental hazard in Poland with risks that are likely to increase in the future. Land use and land cover (LULC) have a strong influencing on flood risk. In the Polish Carpathians, the two main projected land use change processes are forest expansion and urbanization. These processes have a contradictory impact on flood risk, which makes the future impact of LULC changes on flooding in the Carpathians hard to estimate. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the projected LULC changes on future flood risk in the Polish Carpathians for the test area of Ropa river basin. We used three models of spatially explicit future LULC scenarios for the year 2060. We conduct hydrological simulations for the current state and for the three projected land use scenarios (trend extrapolation, ‘liberalization’ and ‘self-sufficiency’). In addition, we calculated the amount of flood-related monetary losses, based on the current flood plain area and both actual and projected land use maps under each of the three scenarios. The results show that in the Ropa river, depending on scenario, either peak discharge decreases due to the forest expansion or the peak discharge remains constant—the impact of LULC changes on the hydrology of such mountainous basins is relatively low. However, the peak discharges are very diverse across sub-catchments within the modeling area. Despite the overall decrease of peak discharge, there are areas of flow increase and there is a substantial projected increase in flood-related monetary losses within the already flood-prone areas, related to the projected degree of urbanization.     

Wind-wave variability in a shallow tidal sea—Spectral modelling combined with neural network methods

In this paper the wind-wave variability in the tidal basins of the German Wadden Sea is modelled with combined numerical and neural-network (NN) methods. First, the wave propagation and transformation in the study area are modelled with the state-of-the-art third-generation spectral wave model SWAN. The ability of SWAN to accurately reproduce the phenomena of interest in nonstationary conditions governed by highly variable winds, water levels and currents is shown by comparisons of the modelled and measured mean wave parameters at four stations. The principal component analysis of the SWAN results is then used to reveal the dominating spatial patterns in the data and to reduce their dimensionality, thus enabling an efficient and relatively straightforward NN modelling of mean wave parameters in the whole study area. It is shown that the data produced with the approach developed in this work have statistical properties (discrete probability distributions of the mean wave parameters etc.) very close to the properties of the data obtained with SWAN, thus proving that this approach can be used as a reliable tool for wind wave simulation in coastal areas, complementary to (often computationally demanding) spectral wave models.     

Quantitative Limits to Qualitative Engagements: GIS,Its Critics,and the Philosophical Divide∗

Heated exchanges between critical theorists and GIScientists over geographic information systems (GIS) in 1990s geography gave rise to calls for increased communication between critics and practitioners of the technology and most recently for “hybrid” qualitative–quantitative GIS practices. Although GIS scholars have successfully addressed mid-1990s critiques of the technology by developing a series of critical GIS practices that involve nuanced and reflexive deployments of GIS and assessments of its visual products, theoretical critiques of GIS remain fixated on the epistemological deficiencies of the technology. Despite references to loosening metaphysical tensions across the discipline, this difference in assessments reveals the discourses of critical-theoretic geography and GIScience to remain separated by a trenchant philosophical divide, across which ontological and epistemological commitments are inviolable. The inability to fully reconcile a critical–theoretic epistemology with the explicitly ontological metaphysics of GIS further complicates qualitative engagements with the technology by addressing a series of inconsistencies into GIS praxis arising from the quantitative limits to representation encountered in the formal universe of computing. The persistence of metaphysical tensions in critical engagements with the technology questions the degree to which qualitative methods can be seamlessly hybridized with the quantitative architectures of GIS.     

Paleo-stratigraphic permeability anisotropy controls supergene mimetic martite goethite deposits

The Hamersley Basin in Western Australia is one of the world's largest iron ore-producing regions, hosting two types of ore in banded iron formations: the high-grade martite-microplaty haematite and the supergene martite-goethite ores. With the high-grade ores almost entirely mined in the last decade, the supergene ores have more recently become the dominant resource of interest. Consequently, understanding the genesis of these martite-goethite deposits is a critical step for exploration. Yet, although various models exist, there is still no consensus on how these mineral resources formed, complicating the prediction of resource volume and location. Here, we show that the paleo-stratigraphic permeability anisotropy (with higher permeability along strata than across) controls the supergene mimetic enrichment transport process and, subsequently, the mineralisation distribution. We introduce a flow model that implicitly represents strata with a potential function that orients the permeability tensor accurately. The numerical solver uses automatic mesh adaptivity to deliver robust solutions. By accurately reproducing the mineralisation patterns in specific deposits, we identify and quantify the paleo-water table level and permeability anisotropy ratio as the two main controlling parameters for the mineralisation distribution. These insights provide new timing constraints for the mineralisation and the physical process of iron enrichment, suggesting much more potential mineralisation volume in the paleo-reconstructed zones than previously anticipated. These flow models allow us to draw geological conclusions with few a priori assumptions required for the genetic model in which the transport component is dominant. The predictive power of this methodology will allow targeted drilling to narrow down the prospective areas and lower exploration costs. Furthermore, the methodology's generality applies to other commodities in sedimentary basins involving supergene processes and will improve our understanding of various genetic models.