Landslides and rock falls are among the many phenomena that have an impact on sustainable construction and infrastructure safety. The main causes of landslides are natural meteorological and hydrological phenomena. In building design and construction, environmental monitoring by identifying geotechnical hazards must be taken into account, as appropriate hazard assessment contributes to ensuring future construction safety. The Carpathian region in southern Poland is particularly predisposed to landslide formation. This may be favored by the nature of the shapes associated with the high and steep slopes of the region’s valleys. Another reason for concern is the flysch geological structure, which is characterized by alternating layers of water-permeable sandstones and poorly permeable shales, clays, and marls. Furthermore, the presence of a quaternary weathering cover makes the geological structure more susceptible to landslide processes and tectonic formations. The paper presents the results of a study whose aim was to elaborate a detailed landslide hazard map for a selected area in the Polish Carpathians, using statistical methods. The approach is based on the Hellwig method, which seems particularly useful in the assessment of susceptibility and landslide hazards on a local scale for a relatively small area. A two-stage study was conducted. The first stage of the research involved the creation of a database associated with environmental parameters and triggering factors, whereas the second stage consisted of the adoption of weights for seven thematic sections and their special features on the basis of expert knowledge. The hazard map developed as a result was compared to the mapping made using the weight-of-evidence method. The proposed data normalization method allows the use and analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data collected from various sources. The advantage of this method is the simple calculation procedure. A large-scale (1:2000) map might be used to assess the landslide hazard for specific cadastral units. Such a map becomes the basis for municipal spatial planning and may be able to influence investment decisions. Detailed landslide hazard maps are crucial for more precise risk evaluation for specific cadastral units. This, in turn, allows one to reduce serious economic and social losses, which might be the future results of landslides.
In recent years, there is an increase of landslide risk observed, which is associated with intensive anthropogenic activities and extreme weather conditions. Appropriate monitoring and proper development of measurements resulting as maps of areas at risk of landslides enables us to estimate the risk in the social and economic aspect. Landslide monitoring in the framework of SOPO project is performed by several methods of measurements: monitoring of surface (GNSS measurement and laser scanning), monitoring in-deepth (inclinometer measurements) and monitoring of the hydrological changes and precipitation (measuring changes in water-table and rainfall).
Control of technical parameters obtained by ready-mixed concrete may be carried out at different stages of the development of concrete properties and by different participants involved in the construction investment process. According to the European Standard EN 206 “Concrete–Specification, performance, production and conformity”, mandatory control of concrete conformity is conducted by the producer during production. As shown by the subject literature, statistical criteria set out in the standard, including the method for concrete quality assessment based on the concept of concrete family, continue to evoke discussions and raise doubts. This justifies seeking alternative methods for concrete quality assessment. This paper presents a novel approach to quality control and classification of concrete based on combining statistical and fuzzy theories as a means of representation of two types of uncertainty: random uncertainty and information uncertainty. In concrete production, a typical situation when fuzzy uncertainty can be taken into consideration is the conformity control of concrete compressive strength, which is conducted to confirm the declared concrete class. The proposed procedure for quality assessment of a concrete batch is based on defining the membership function for the considered concrete classes and establishing the degree of belonging to the considered concrete class. It was found that concrete classification set out by the standard includes too many concrete classes of overlapping probability density distributions, and the proposed solution was to limit the scope of compressive strength to every second class so as to ensure the efficacy of conformity assessment conducted for concrete classes and concrete families. The proposed procedures can lead to two types of decisions: non-fuzzy (crisp) or fuzzy, which point out to possible solutions and their corresponding preferences. The suggested procedure for quality assessment allows to classify a concrete batch in a fuzzy way with the degree of certainty less than or equal to 1. The results obtained confirm the possibility of employing the proposed method for quality assessment in the production process of ready-mixed concrete.
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