Timber harvesting, especially motor-manual felling, in Croatia, as in many other countries, is one of the most hazardous economic activities. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to analyse and compare the latest trends and risk factors related to the incidence of work-induced injuries in structural organization units of national forest enterprise. A combined approach of literature review and assembled secondary data was applied to gather data on workplace accidents over the years 2014–2020. Work-induced injuries data were drawn from the records of the national enterprise Croatian Forests Ltd. which manages state forests (76% of total forest area). A total of 1626 work-induced injuries were processed and entered into the database. Data analysis was conducted using statistical and descriptive methods. Research results have proven a significant difference in the injury rate over the years 2014–2020 in the Croatian forest enterprise. During the analysed period the highest number of workplace accidents (51.35% of all recorded workplace accidents) occurred during the forest harvesting phase, i.e., during motor-manual felling. Trends in the incidence of work-induced injuries in the observed period do not show any significant improvement. The key findings have pointed out that forest administrations which practice even-aged forest management have 25% or more injuries than forest administrations which practice selective forest management. Related to the average rate of change by forest administration, the largest annual increase or decrease of the selected safety indicators is recorded for smallest forest administrations. Related to total number of injuries, the smallest forest administrations have the least injuries and show statistically significant difference compared to large forest administrations. When comparing the number of injuries per 1000 employees, medium sized forest administrations have the highest value of indicator and show statistical significance. Discussion and conclusion of the paper emphasizes the need for systematic research in the field of ergonomy, safety and health of forest workers in Croatian forestry sector. Additionally, the development and inclusion of proactive safety culture is recognized as a mechanism that can further reduce work injuries and improve occupational safety which should have a significant role in the process of certification of forest management according to the FSC standard.
Because of their importance, water springs have been the subject of scholarly study since the late 17th century. With the development of science in the 19th, and especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, they became the object of study of various fields and branches of science. The result of the diverse studies of springs is a rich knowledge of their properties and the development of numerous classifications. Most basic classifications were created at the beginning of the 20th century, but a need for interdisciplinary research and classification of springs has emerged in the last twenty years. Today, however, there is no internationally-accepted interdisciplinary classification or database of springs that would facilitate the comparison of researched features and the use of research data. In Croatia, water-rich karst springs, which are attractive phenomena, have been thoroughly researched and classified, while non-karst springs have been examined less. The aim of this paper is to present the development of spring classifications throughout history, to emphasize the variety of research approaches that have been used, and to present the most important modern research of springs in the world and in Croatia.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.