Zprávy památkové péče 2016, 76(3):317-325

Reconstruction of relief in areas with surface mining of brown coal

Jan Pacina, Kamil Novák

1.

Introduction: Landscapes influenced by open-pit mining are very common in the northwest part of the Czech Republic. Mining activity had a great impact on the landscape structure, land-use development, shape of georelief, and human life in general. In this article we would like to focus on a very significant example of landscape transfiguration caused by open-pit mining. The royal town of Most, established in the 13th century, was destroyed together with the surrounding villages as over 100 million tons of brown coal were mined in this area. The actual intensive mining started in the 1930's and definitely terminated in 1999. The hydraulic reclamation of the depleted mine started in 2008, meaning that the mine was over-flooded to form a lake.
We have tried to perform a precise georelief reconstruction in the locality affected by open-pit mining in different time periods, as it is very important for understanding the total landscape change in this region. The shape of the georelief may be reconstructed from altimetry information contained in old maps, or by processing old aerial photographs using standard methods of photogrammetry. The resulting Digital Terrain Models (DTM) should be offered up to the scientific society and the wide public. This is accomplished by publishing the data through a Geographic information system (GIS) of this locality and the GIS Internet technologies.
2.

Objectives: This article aims to present a methodology for georelief reconstructions in areas affected by open-pit mining using old maps and aerial imagery. The georelief is reconstructed using the elevation information contained in the selected old maps - all the maps are georeferenced and the contour lines are hand digitized. A suitable interpolation algorithm is used for derivation of the DTM representing the reconstructed georelief. The Digital Surface Models (DSM) are derived from aerial imagery with 60% overlap. The resulting DTMs and DSMs can be further on analyzed in different ways using the differential analysis, transect analysis or volumetric calculations.
3.

Methodology: The area of interest is defined to describe the most significant georelief transfigurations during the 20th and in the beginning of the 21st century, having a large effect on the surroundings of the city of Most. All the transfigurations were caused by the open-pit mining activity and the ongoing technical reclamations. The initial point of this analysis is the area where the royal city of Most used to be located, consequently the quarry Ležáky-Most, which currently (since 2008) is being turned into a hydraulic reclamation project. As supplementary points, etching in the large scale of georelief transfigurations in this area, places were chosen that related the old city of Most in a geographical and administrative way - the area of Kopisty and Střimice dump, the residual excavation of Venuše, and the former quarry Vrbenský. The area of the Vrbenský quarry used to include the municipality of Souš which was destroyed, while the locality is currently being transformed into a leisure time hydraulic reclamation project. Our area of interest is located in the Ústí nad Labem region, covering the cadastres of Konobrže, Rudolice nad Bílinou, Kopisty, Pařidla, Obrnice, Braňany, Třebušice, Růžodol, Dolní Jiřetín, Hořany, Jenišův Újezd, Most I and Most II. The total area of the area of interest is 30,493 km2.
4. Lake Most. The Lake Most locality is currently being turned into a hydraulic reclamation project by flooding the former brown coal quarry Ležáky-Most. The first records mentioning coal mining in this area originate from 1762. During the 18th and 19th century, many underground mines in this area were opened. Open-pit mining started in the mine Jan (Johann, Johann-Tiefbau) established in 1870. This mine started as an underground mine as well, but soon changed the mining technology to open-pit mining. In the beginning of the 20th century, other underground mines began to extract using open-pit mining technology. The mining area of Ležáky-Most itself was established in the year 1969. The mining decrement began in 1995 and on 31 August 1999 the mine was definitely shut down.
In the area of the current lake (situated north of "new" Most) there used to be to the royal city of Most and other villages. The depleted quarry over-flooding began on 24 October 2008. The hydraulic reclamation project is a part of the complex revitalization of the surrounding landscape covering a total area of 1264 ha. In the final stage, the future lake will cover a total area of 311 ha, have a maximal depth of 75m, perimeter of 9815m and a water level of 199 m a.s.l. The lake over-flooding should have been finished in the year 2011, but the date was postponed. Currently the biggest problem is enormous water evaporation.

Keywords: Most basin; reconstruction of landscape relief; 3D printing; digital terrain model; Lake Most

Published: September 1, 2016  Show citation