Kartografia geośrodowiskowa pomocą w ochronie środowiska Górnego Śląska — czy w pełni wykorzystywaną?

Abstract

Geoenvironmental cartography as a helpful tool in protecting the environment of the Upper Silesia— is its potential fully exploited?S u m m a r y. The paper reviews cartographic studies of Upper Silesia in overview scales (mostly 1 : 50,000). Geoenvironmental cartography is intended to help in solving problems related to environmental protection and management, especially concerning spatial planning. These problems discussed at various levels of state and self-government administration, necessitate presenting various topics in different extent, scales, etc., depending on type and scale of the phenomena analysed. An ideal tool for such analyses are digital GIS databases. The provincial geodetic and cartographic collection held by the Marshal of the Śląskie Voivodeship (Silesian Province) consists of serial maps produced in 1 : 50,000 scale, available in analog format and as digital records. These are: Geological Economical Map of Poland, Hydrogeological Map of Poland, Sozological Map of Poland, Hydrographic Map of Poland, Map of the Hydrographic Division of Poland, Geoenvironmental Map of Poland. Noteworthy are also other studies concerning the Silesian region, by the Polish Geological Institute: Valorisation of natural environment and its hazards within the Śląskie Voivodeship; Geochemical Atlas of the Upper Silesia in 1 : 200,000 scale, Detailed Geochemical Map of the Upper Silesia in 1 : 25,000 scale (sheets: Sławków, Olkusz, Nowa Góra, Myślachowice and Chrzanów), Map of chemistry and quality of ordinary groundwaters of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin and its surroundings in 1 : 100,000 scale, Engineering-geological database with engineering- geological atlas of the Katowice conurbation. The above listed overview scale maps cover the whole Upper Silesia region, thus providing a good basis for regional analyses. Their important common feature is that they are digitally prepared and in fact are rich environmental databases that can be used for GIS-compatible studies, even though there were compiled using different software. The review of geoenvironmental studies on the Upper Silesian region indicates that there is a lot of information available in that respect. Their vast majority is accessible at the Voivodeship Center for Geodetic and Cartographic Documentation in Katowice. Unfortunately, the availability is not fully utilized by the state and self-government administration at the county- or community-level. The situation is somewhat better at the Voivodeship level, even though it is still not satisfactory. Despite the topic has been discussed in public or published upon, still not much is being done to improve the situation beyond verbal declarations about the need to develop information society and innovative administration methods in Poland.