Relevance of building site categories implementation into the land use plan in underground mining area in the region of Petrvald (Czech Republic)

Deep mining of mineral resources causes extensive changes in rock environment and ground morphology and must be considered in the land use planning. Subsidence as a result of underground mining activities in terrains is one of the serious geological hazards because they can effect slopes and damage engineering structures, settlement areas, natural lakes and allow infiltration of contaminant into the groundwater. The main aim of this article was implementation of the building site categories of underground mining regions into the land use plans. This case study area was selected from the region of Orlova town within the Ostrava-Karvina Coal district, and this region is one of the most affected areas by underground mining of black coal in the Czech Republic. Certain risk categories of land, where the individual categories express generalized influence of deep mining of coal in current and planned constructions were also represented in this article. Extensive variations caused by underground mining were identified within a wide variability of risk categories. An important finding was also the extensive variability over time, manifested by spatial variations in the stated categories in the studied time periods. Moreover, technical documentation of environmental impacts related to underground mining activities was provided; importance of existing and proposed underground mining projects that may significantly impact the land use was discussed and pointed out in this article, especially.     

Determination of actual limit angles to the surface and their comparison with the empirical values in the Upper Silesian Basin (Czech Republic)

This study deals with the determination of the actual limit angles in the long-term formed subsidence basin in the Czech part of the Upper Silesian Basin (the remaining part lays in Poland). Here there was the most extensive underground exploitation of black coal in the north-east of the Czech Republic. A limit angle is absolutely decisive in the determination of deep mining influences in relation to the current and future utilisation of this territory. The two CSM and Paskov mine localities on the edge of the subsidence basin were selected for this study, since they could not have been affected by mining in neighbouring mines. On the grounds of the long-term levelling monitoring of points on the surface which started prior to mining, the horizontal distance between the mined out area and the undisturbed ground surface was identified. The impact of limit angle on the surface was calculated by means of the horizontal distance and the established mining depth. Such identified actual limit angles reached the values of 36° at the CSM Mine and 25° for the Paskov Mine. The calculated values are significantly lower when compared with the currently applied empirical values of 57° for the CSM Mine and 56° for the Paskov Mine. This means that the extent of the undermining effects is unambiguously wider by 611 m at the CSM Mine and by 883 m at the Paskov Mine. This study thus establishes the existence of a significantly vaster area influenced by coal deep mining than previously expected. The identified facts lead to the conclusion that regular revisions and follow-up updates of the empirically determined parameters are recommended.     

An epidemiological approach to determining the risk of road damage due to landslides

Disruption of segments of roads can have a significant impact on the vulnerability of the entire network. Natural disasters are frequent causes of disruptions of this kind. This article focuses on determining the risk of road disruptions due to landslides. Our approach is based on methodology widely used in the field of epidemiology. We had available data on the location of the landslides, the road network and a list of the disrupted road segments. With the use of a 2 × 2 table, we determined the relationship between landslide data and road segment disruptions and derived the risk coefficient based on the number of landslides in the vicinity of the road and its length. The result is a disruption risk map with risk coefficients ranging from 0 to 47.94. In order to distinguish the most risky segments, we calculated a threshold of 12.40 with the use of a risk breakdown in a group of segments without damage. Nineteen percentage (402 km) of the road network in the Zlín region (Czech Republic), where the methodology was applied, is located beyond this threshold. The benefits of this approach stem from its speed and potential to define the most risky areas on which a detailed geomorphologic analysis can be focused.     

A modern analogue of the Pleistocene steppe‐tundra ecosystem in southern Siberia

Steppe‐tundra is considered to have been a dominant ecosystem across northern Eurasia during the Last Glacial Maximum. As the fossil record is insufficient for understanding the ecology of this vanished ecosystem, modern analogues have been sought, especially in Beringia. However, Beringian ecosystems are probably not the best analogues for more southern variants of the full‐glacial steppe‐tundra because they lack many plant and animal species of temperate steppes found in the full‐glacial fossil record from various areas of Europe and Siberia. We present new data on flora, land snails and mammals and characterize the ecology of a close modern analogue of the full‐glacial steppe‐tundra ecosystem in the southeastern Russian Altai Mountains, southern Siberia. The Altaian steppe‐tundra is a landscape mosaic of different habitat types including steppe, mesic and wet grasslands, shrubby tundra, riparian scrub, and patches of open woodland at moister sites. Habitat distribution, species diversity, primary productivity and nutrient content in plant biomass reflect precipitation patterns across a broader area and the topography‐dependent distribution of soil moisture across smaller landscape sections. Plant and snail species considered as glacial relicts occur in most habitats of the Altaian steppe‐tundra, but snails avoid the driest types of steppe. A diverse community of mammals, including many species typical of the full‐glacial ecosystems, also occurs there. Insights from the Altaian steppe‐tundra suggest that the full‐glacial steppe‐tundra was a heterogeneous mosaic of different habitats depending on landscape‐scale moisture gradients. Primary productivity of this habitat mosaic combined with shallow snow cover that facilitated winter grazing was sufficient to sustain rich communities of large herbivores.     

Unique documentation,analysis of origin and development of an undrained depression in a subsidence basin caused by underground coal mining (Kozinec,Czech Republic)

This article aims to explain and demonstrate the origin and development of a subsidence basin caused by coal mining as well as to point out important aspects of this phenomenon in engineering geology. Engineering geology needs to deal with a number of issues related to the origin and development of subsidence basins in areas affected by deep coal mining. An interesting case study from the Upper-Silesian Basin in the northeast of the Czech Republic near the Polish border is presented in this paper. There is a clear time chronological succession in the ground surface changes manifested by a ground subsidence gradation, both in their absolute values as well as in their spatial distribution. The phenomenon is documented by aerial photo time series, which optimally depict the origin and development of the subsidence. In the study area, there are changes in the landscape elements and it is essential to be considered in future land use plans. The marginal conditions of the Quaternary geological structure and hydrogeological conditions are responsible for an unconfined aquifer which manifests there as a water body in an undrained depression in the course of the ground subsidence.     

Total water content thresholds for shallow landslides,Outer Western Carpathians

Shallow landslides are fairly frequent natural processes which emerge as a result of both rainfall and rapid snowmelt in the Flysch Belt of the Outer Western Carpathians. We estimated the total water content thresholds for the previously defined seven phases of increased landsliding which took place between 1939 and 2010 around the Napajedla meteorological station. The time series were reconstructed on the basis of data from surrounding stations. Rainfalls with the highest intensities (>1 mm/min) were removed from the set. Rainfall of such an intensity primarily causes overland flow and soil erosion and does not contribute to landslide threshold. The snow water equivalent was computed on the basis of the snow height, and possible errors were evaluated as interval estimations. An interval of 10 days before a landslide phase was selected for the total water content threshold. The resulting lower boundary (67.0 mm/10 days) and upper boundary (163.3 mm/10 days) thresholds of water infiltrated into soil during an event shall be part of the prepared online warning system in this area.     

Spatial and temporal variations in the population structure of the soft-shell clam Mya arenaria in the Pomeranian Bay (southern Baltic Sea)

The population structure of Mya arenaria has been investigated in the sublittoral zone of the Pomeranian Bay (southern Baltic Sea). Box-corer samples were collected during a 1.5-year period in 1993/94 to follow changes in size and age structure of the clam populations in different parts of the study area. Large spatial differences in population structure were found between the sheltered southwest of the Bay and the shallow and exposed Oder Bank in the centre. The stock of the Oder Bank consisted of two different clam types. A slow-growing cohort was assumed to be autochtonous on the Oder Bank, whereas a fast-growing one was assumed to have immigrated from the surrounding area. The contribution of the two cohorts to the total density varied seasonally. Because of bedload transport of clams, the contribution to the reduction of the clam stock by wintering sea ducks could not be quantified. In the southwest of the Pomeranian Bay erosion was of minor importance. High mortality rates during the first two years of life were assumed to be caused by predation. Mortality rates of older cohorts remained stable until old age. Variations in cohort strength were related to interannual differences in the reproductive success. A mild winter presumably lowers the reproductive success in the subsequent summer. Severe oxygen depletion in summer 1994 caused a strong reduction in the clam stock at stations deeper than 10 m.