Land subsidence in the area of the city of Walbrzych (SW Poland) has been a consequence of underground mining of hard coal. Exploitation of multiseam deposit took place for several 100 years and ended in the late 90'ties of the twentieth century. During this time, many buildings and constructions were affected by subsidence-related damages and new landforms including mining waste dumps have developed on the surface in a consequence of underground extraction of coal. Previous studies indicated that cumulative subsidence calculated with the empirical Knothe theory reached -22 m, whereas calculations based on results of cartographic data processing showed more than -30 m (± 3 m) pointing to insufficient reliability of traditional methods when applied in complex and complicated conditions (multiseam and steeply inclined deposits). Present-day height of manmade landforms in areas affected by subsidence reaches 63 m (± 3 m). Therefore, in the presented research, a weighted spatial regression method has been proposed for analysis and modelling of mining induced land subsidence. The study concerned the former Walbrzych coal mine area and the 1886-2009 period. The subsidence modelling has been done in geographic information systems with geographically weighted regression (GWR) method that allows for spatial variability of subsidence factors. Four, out of the analysed seven, subsidence factors were identified as significant (thickness, inclination and depth of coal levels and surface slope) and used as independent (explanatory) variables in construction of the subsidence model with the GWR method. The validated model was used to estimate subsidence in up to now unmapped areas transformed by manmade landforms. The maximum predicted subsidence in these parts for the 1886-2009 period reaches -10.5 m. In the result, a spatial representation (hybrid map) of subsidence for the entire Walbrzych coal mine has been produced.

Rock minerals such as dimension and crushed stones and sands and gravels (aggregates) are indispensable materials for the building and construction industries. The growth in demand for these resources causes intensification of mining operations (and their consequent environmental impacts) and transport problems in regions abundant in rock minerals. The balanced management of these resources by regional policy-makers is difficult as it requires, among other things, comprehensive and up-to-date information on the spatial distribution and temporal changes of available reserves, demand, production, and transport. This information can be provided by means of spatial and temporal analyses through geographic information systems (GIS). In this research, the focus is on the following aspects of rock mineral (aggregates) resources and mining management in the context of regional spatial planning in the example region of Lower Silesia in Poland: the spatial and temporal changes in distribution and intensity of mining, the availability of economic reserves in active mines, the magnitude and distribution of road transport flows of aggregates, the potential of railways as an alternative means of transport, and the valorisation of undeveloped aggregates deposits to assess their suitability for future use. For the purposes of this study, cartographic models have been developed using GIS to facilitate analyses of these mineral resources, mining, and transport. The results of these analyses provide current and comprehensive information on the state of aggregates mineral resources, production and transport in the Lower Silesia region. They also give an insight into availability of rock mineral resources for the future. Knowledge of these processes is important for spatial development planning, especially physical infrastructure, conducted by national, regional, and local governments.

Usually, substantial part of a mine haulage system is based on belt conveyors. Reliability of such system is significant in terms of mining operation continuity and profitability. Numerous methods for conveyor belt monitoring have been developed, although many of them require physical presence of the monitoring staff in the dangerous environment. In this paper, a remote sensing method for assessing a conveyor belt condition using the Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) system has been described. For this purpose a methodology of semi-automatic processing of point cloud data for obtaining the belt geometry has been developed. The sample data has been collected in a test laboratory and processed with the proposed algorithms. Damaged belt surface areas have been successfully identified and edge defects were investigated. The proposed non-destructive testing methodology has been found to be suitable for monitoring the general condition of the conveyor belt and could be exceptionally successful and cost-effective if combined with an unmanned, robotic inspection system.

The issue of monitoring surface motions in post-mining areas in Europe is important due to the fact that a significant number of post-mining areas lie in highly-urbanized and densely-populated regions. Examples can be found in: Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, as well as the subject of this study, the Polish Walbrzych Hard Coal Basin. Studies of abandoned coal fields show that surface deformations in post-mining areas occur even several dozen years after the end of underground coal extraction, posing a threat to new development of these areas. In the case of the Walbrzych area, fragmentary, geodetic measurements indicate activity of the surface in the post-mining period (from 1995 onward). In this work, we aimed at determining the evolution of surface deformations in time during the first 15 years after the end of mining, i.e., the 1995–2010 period using ERS 1/2 and Envisat satellite radar data. Satellite radar data from European Space Agency missions are the only source of information on historical surface movements and provide spatial coverage of the entirety of the coal fields. In addition, we attempted to analyze the relationship of the ground deformations with hydrogeological changes and geological and mining data. Three distinct stages of ground movements were identified in the study. The ground motions (LOS (Line Of Sight)) determined with the PSInSAR (Persistent Scatterer Interferometry) method indicate uplift of the surface of up to +8 mm/a in the first period (until 2002). The extent and rate of this motion was congruent with the process of underground water table restoration in separate water basins associated with three neighboring coal fields. In the second period, after the stabilization of the underground water table, the surface remained active, as indicated by local subsidence (up to −5 mm/a) and uplift (up to +5 mm/a) zones. We hypothesize that this surface activity is the result of ground reaction disturbed by long-term shallow and deep mining. The third stage is characterized by gradual stabilization and decreasing deformations of the surface. The results accentuate the complexity of ground motion processes in post-mining areas, the advantages of the satellite radar technique for historical studies, and provide information for authorities responsible for new development of such areas, e.g., regarding potential flood zones caused by restoration of groundwater table in subsided areas.

Urban parks have been known to form park cooling islands (PCI), which can effectively alleviate the effect of urban heat islands (UHI) in cities. This paper presents results obtained for four different size parks in the city of Wroclaw, which is located in a temperate continental climate. The number of publications for urban areas located in this type of climate and cities is low compared to sites in hot and humid areas. Land surface temperature (LST) maps were developed from Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) data acquired during three hottest weather periods between 2017 and 2019. Metrics and spatial statistics characterising the four parks selected for the analysis based on their size were calculated. These included: perimeter, area, landscape shape index (LSI) and PLC (forest area) park metrics, and Park Cooling Area (PCA), Park Cooling Efficiency (PCE), Park Cooling Gradient (PCG), Park Cooling Island (PCI) and Extended Park Cooling Island (PCIe) spatial indexes. The averaged PCIe values ranged from 2.0 to 3.6 °C, PCI from 1.9 to 3.6 °C, PCG from 0.7 to 2.2 °C, PCE from 5.3 to 11.5, and PCA from 78.8 to 691.8 ha depending on the park. The cooling distance varied from 110 m to 925 m depending on park size, forest area and land use type in the park’s vicinity. The study provides new insight into urban park cooling effects in a medium sized city located in a temperate continental climate, and the role of parks in regulation of urban temperature to mitigate the UHI effect.

Un der ground coal min ing causes sur face changes such as sub si dence and land use trans for ma tions. The knowl edge of the char ac ter of sub si dence in both the past and pres ent pro vides use ful in for ma tion, e.g. for spa tial de vel op ment. This pa per pres ents a meth od ol ogy of de ter min ing sur face height changes based on car to graphic mod el ling in geo graphic in for ma tion sys tem (GIS) for an old min ing site. It has been ap plied in two test ar eas of a for mer coal ba sin in the Wa³brzych re gion (SW Po land) char ac ter ized by com plex geo log i cal and min ing con di tions. Sur face changes have been de ter mined based on avail able top o graphic maps of this area for a pe riod of 123 years (1886-2009) as the re sult of a set of in ter po la tion and map al ge bra op er a tions. The el e va tion val ues reach 52 and 63 m for ar eas A and B, re spec tively, and the max i mum sub si dence val ues de ter mined in GIS are 24 m for study area A and 36 m for area B. The for mer are as so ci ated with min ing waste dumps. These re sults have been com pared with the re sults of pre dic tions based on the em pir i cal Knothe the ory of sub si dence cal cula tions us ing spa tial sta tis tics pa ram e ters. It has been found that Knothe the ory-based mod el ling pro duces lower sub si dence val ues and more uni form sub si dence sur face than the ap plied method based on the ac tual el e va tion data. This may be due to ei ther the val ues of co ef fi cients of sub si dence used in the Knothe mod el ling method or the com plex and com pli cated min ing con di tions (nu mer ous over ly ing and in clined coal lay ers) of the Wa³brzych Coal Ba sin. The cal cu lated sur face height changes for the ana lysed pe riod are pre sented graph i cally and de scribed.

The Lower Silesia area in SW Poland is characterized by a geological structure that is conducive to mining activity. The exploitation of rock raw materials plays an important role in this sector of the economy. By the end of 2017, there were in total approximately 400 current concessions for the exploitation of rock raw materials in the analysed area (Polish Geological Institute, MIDAS database—Management and Protection System of Polish Mineral Resources). The conducted mining activity results in waste, which in the greatest amount occurs in the process of obtaining crushed road and construction aggregates, natural aggregates, carbonate raw materials for the cement and lime industry, as well as stone elements for construction and road engineering. At the end of 2016, the mining plants accumulated 26,569,600 Mg of waste. As part of the European Regions Toward Circular Economy (CircE) project, research was conducted on the volume and composition of the mining waste of rock raw materials in the years 2010–2016 within Lower Silesia. This research used the methods of statistical, descriptive and spatial analysis to identify mining plants with the highest potential for using their wastes. In the course of this study, 6 mining plants with the highest potential of using their waste for industrial production purposes were selected. In order to objectively select these plants, the methodology of qualitative multi-criteria analysis was developed, and 7 criteria were selected for assessing the economic potential of using waste from the mining of rock raw materials. An additional result of this research is a database and graphical presentation of changes in the spatial distribution of generated waste in the Lower Silesia region in the years ranging from 2010 to 2016.

Understanding the magnitude and distribution of the mixes of the near-ground carbon dioxide (CO2) components spatially (related to the surface characteristics) and temporally (over seasonal timescales) is critical to evaluating present and future climate impacts. Thus, the application of in situ measurement approaches, combined with the spatial interpolation methods, will help to explore variations in source contribution to the total CO2 mixing ratios in the urban atmosphere. This study presents the spatial characteristic and temporal trend of atmospheric CO2 levels observed within the city of Wroclaw, Poland for the July 2017–August 2018 period. The seasonal variability of atmospheric CO2 around the city was directly measured at the selected sites using flask sampling with a Picarro G2201-I Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy (CRDS) technique. The current work aimed at determining the accuracy of the interpolation techniques and adjusting the interpolation parameters for estimating the magnitude of CO2 time series/seasonal variability in terms of limited observations during the vegetation and non-vegetation periods. The objective was to evaluate how different interpolation methods will affect the assessment of air pollutant levels in the urban environment and identify the optimal sampling strategy. The study discusses the schemes for optimization of the interpolation results that may be adopted in areas where no observations are available, which is based on the kriging error predictions for an appropriate spatial density of measurement locations. Finally, the interpolation results were extended regarding the average prediction bias by exploring additional experimental configurations and introducing the limitation of the future sampling strategy on the seasonal representation of the CO2 levels in the urban area.