Zeszyt: 2011, vol. 8 / 12
The article aims at identification and assessment of the extent to which rural communes in Poland participate in financing environmental protection investments. Investments in the natural environment protection are the subject of the paper. The analysis addresses particularly the issue of their financing, especially funding from budgetary means of rural communes with regard to territorial division into provinces. Secondary sources of information for the years 2004-2009 were used in the investigations. Among the sources of funding for environmental protection investments, the most important are own means covering almost half of the outlays on fixed assets for the natural environmental protection. Expenses from communes' budgets are of marginal importance for the structure of environmental protection funding. Communes' investment expenditure focuses almost exclusively on wastewater management, water protection and waste management.Rural communes financed 20.3% of the total environmental investment outlays realized by all communes. Environmental protection (together with public utilities) are on the second position among the investment objectives of rural communes. The largest scale of investment expenditure on the environmental pro-tection in 2009 was registered in the Podkarpackie province, where rural communes financed about 20% of investment outlays in this field made by all rural communes in Poland total.Tangible effects of ...
The study deals with definition and cross-comparison of soil infiltration capacity at two selected sites located in cadastral territories of Nosislav and Žabčice, Czech Republic. In order to assess the soil infiltration capacity in the areas of interest Niva and Kovál over the course of the 2010 growing season, four trips were made with three measurements taking place during each trip. A method of double-ring infiltration measurement was applied, based on the use of two concentric cylinders in field conditions and the subsequent data processing via geographical-empirical method according to Kostiakov. The soil infiltration capacity was assessed with regard to physical properties determined by an analysis of intact soil samples using Kopecky cylinders. The results indicate a reduced infiltration capacity due to soil compaction and also significant differences between the two sites, primarily caused by differences in soil type and, hence, different physical characteristics.
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A comparative analysis, using the classification tree method, of typically agritourism and agriculturally inactive farms has been conducted in this paper. An interview questionnaire, carried out on 78 farms, has been applied as a research tool.According to the research, typically agritourism farms evaluated the quality of their own services more positively. However, these factors did not influence the improvement of offer standards. Perhaps they had to invest more often in the development of farms rather than focus on improving the sanitary and hygiene infrastructure. The residential buildings may have not been adapted to undergo redevelopment in that respect.Agriculturally inactive households rarely broadened their knowledge in order to improve accommodation conditions. They had higher standards regardless of the level of hosts' qualifications. Presumably, hosts who focus mainly on agritourism are more likely to improve accommodation conditions. They basically do not have to pay expenses that would be incurred by agricultural activity.The application of the classification tree method has allowed to observe that high self-evaluation of services provided does not always have to result in better sanitary equipment of rooms or possession of living rooms. The method has made it possible to present the examined factors in a simple graphical manner, thus ...
Construction works in the open air, in particular laying sewage systems, are susceptible to weather conditions. Weather conditions, such as very high or low emperatures, strong winds, intense and prolonged precipitation, interfere with work and they can even lead to cessation of construction. In consequence, the construction work lasts longer than originally assumed. On the other hand, it is impossible to alter weather. Therefore, it is vital to conduct a thorough identification of threats related to adverse weather conditions. This work makes an attempt to determine basic relationship between adverse weather conditions and the possibility of completing construction work according to a schedule. This analysis is a part of Schedule Risk Assessment. The findings show that the frequency of adverse weather occurrence is high and it affects schedule risk with special regard to air temperatures below -5°C and above 25°C. Thus, before starting construction, the probability of adverse weather conditions should be considered. Accurate identification of weather factors during the planning phase may help in accumulation of adequate reserves. Therefore, any unavoidable circumstances that are forced by adverse weather seem to be allowed in the schedule. This work focuses on air temperature, precipitation and wind because of their ...
The degree of future development of agritourism will be strongly influenced by fashion trends that are dictated by the contemporary market. Changing lifestyles of the society, which manifest themselves in the pursuit of buying greener products and seeking unconventional ways of spending free time will further develop this service. Continuous improvement of service offers and introduction of more interesting forms of recreation that guarantee higher quality of services should become key goals for individuals involved in agritourism. The potential of agritourism is slowly being recognized, although in comparison to other forms of accommodation, still a rather small number of Polish tourists choose it. There is therefore a necessity to develop a marketing plan to make agritourism services more distinguishable on the local and foreign tourism markets. In order for rural areas to develop and to provide rural communities with additional sources of income, it undoubtedly seems necessary to differentiate between rural tourism and agritourism.
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Four methods of forecasting: „no-change", LOESS, local linear regression and Holt-Winters were applied to annual minimum water levels observed at ten cross-sections of two tributaries of the Vistula river. The 1-, 2-, ..., 5-year forecasts were made for each year after some initial year, and four quality measures: bias, root mean square error, mean absolute error and maximum absolute error were calculated for each time series and lead time. The naïve model turned out to be always the worst in it bias and almost always very good, sometimes the best regarding the other measures.
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The aim of the study was to determine the extent to which heavy rainfall, that occurred in 2010, affected the infiltration into the selected sewage treatment plants in the Małopolskie voivodeship. The research was conducted in four separate sewer systems, located in poviats adjacent to the city of Kraków, dis-charging sewage to mechanical-biological treatment plants with a capacity below 1000 m3•d-1. The amount of sewage and extraneous water in the average wet year (2008) were used as control.As a result of heavy precipitation in 2010 the sewer system A received 18 539 m3 more extraneous water than in 2008 (increase by 343%), the sewer sys-tem B - 22 822 m3 (increase by 163%), the sewer system C - 109 715 m3 (increase by 248%) and the sewer system D - 30 796 m3 (increase by 303%). Heavy precipitation in 2010 caused the increase of infiltration and inflow by 264% on average in all studied sewer systems compared to the average wet year. As the result of precipitation, whose annual total in 2010 was higher by 65% than the normal value in 2008, there was an increase in the annual share of extraneous water from 5.3 to 19.7% depending on the ...
The aim of the paper is to present the studies on the riverbed erosion on the upper course of Raba river, located from km 81.829 to km 77.751, close to the Stróża gauging station located in km 80.600. This part of the river course is com-pletely changed due to the Project concerning the extension of the Zakopianka road located close to the Raba river. The results of simulation of riverbed evolution before and after the Project carried out by two 1D models (RubarBE and Metoda) are analysed and discussed. The results of computation obtained by both models are verified by field observations carried out in 2001 (before the Project), and in 2009 year (after the Project). The trends of erosion and deposition correspond to the field observations for the dates before and after the Project. Another verification is possible to make for the Stróża cross-section, where observations of cross-sectional geometry and water stages have been carried out from 1900 year till now. The statistical model of riverbed erosion developed for Stróża also confirm the trends obtained there by 1D models.
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The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the biodegradability and biodegradation rates of ‘single-use' plastic bags available on the market and labeled as degradable/biodegradable. The test was carried out under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The project length was 20 months. The biodegradation results in the laboratory conditions demonstrate that none of the degradable/ biodegradable bags showed visual changes and/or were broken into pieces and none of them experienced any disintegration or degradation. The cellulose filter paper (CFP) completely degraded after 10 days in the aerobic conditions and after 5 month in the anaerobic conditions, implying that the conditions required for biodegradation to occur in a sampling environment were present.
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A new act on maintaining the cleanliness and order in communes of 1 July, 2011, will become effective in Poland on 1 January, 2012. The act will come fully into force on 1 July, 2013. According to this act regulations, commune self-governments take over the obligations of the property owners concerning waste management, moreover, they become responsible for construction and maintenance of the infrastructure supporting recycling and waste disposal processes. The self-governments were granted a 1.5 year transition period to implement the act regulations.The introduced changes are an adjustment of Polish regulation to the Euro-pean law. Only in Poland and Hungary local self-governments have not yet been responsible for management of waste generated in their areas.The article presents an analysis of the basic changes introduced by the act to the Polish system of municipal waste management. Presented are also the estimates of the mass of wastes collected on the territory of Poland with particular regard to the Małopolskie voivodeship. Calculations and forecasts were made on the basis of information collected by the Main Statistical Office (GUS) and commune offices, where systems similar to the one introduced by the act have been operating for several years. The act assumes that all ...
In the 21st century, at constant economic and industrial development, the efficient and fast management of technical infrastructure is a key element. Its quality and technical condition considerably influence rural development, possibi-lities to acquire capital, create new jobs, etc. One of the key issues is the road in-frastructure, i.e., network of commune roads, and its condition, while the possibility of management and promptness of decision making determine and are of key importance for planning further development of the commune.In order to manage the road network efficiently and fast, the commune needs all available relevant information. Data describing road technical parameters are the spatial data. Accumulation of the data in geographical database gives a general spatial picture of the commune road network. All data describing roads are recorded in so called road books. The obligation is imposed on the communes by the Minister of Infrastructure Regulation in the method of numbering and registration of public roads [Journal of Laws, No. 67, Items 582 and 583 of 25 April, 2005].The main objective of the presented paper was the realization of a geogra-phical database of the parameters of road network for the Raciechowice Commune Authorities using GPS receiver and the MapSource and ArcView ...
The paper is based on the chosen results of two one-year field experiments which were conducted in the vicinity of Bydgoszcz (Poland) and in the vicinity of Cukurova (Turkey). The aim of the study is to present the comparison of yields of chosen watermelon cultivars grown in the different climatic-soil conditions under drip irrigation with N fertigation. The experiment in Turkey was carried out under better soil conditions than in Poland - watermelon plants were cultivated on the clay loam and fine sand, respectively. ‘Crimson Sweet' and ‘Sugar Baby' cultivars were tested in the experiment in Poland, and two other cultivars (‘Madera-F1', ‘Paladin-F1') were examined in the experiment in Turkey. Nitrogen of 120 kg N was applied in two different nitrogen forms (G - granule nitrogen; L - liquid nitrogen). In the second treatment (L), the liquid N fertilizer was given with irrigation water (fertigation). All plots were drip irrigated. Higher irrigation water rate was supplied in Turkey (251.7 mm) than that in Poland (157.5 mm). Average yields of watermelon ranged from 32.62 to 37.87 t.ha-1, and from 29.09 to 30.35 t.ha-1, in the experiment in Poland and in the experiment in Turkey, respec-tively. Yields were dependent on cultivar and ...
The article presents the results of air temperature measurements inside a basement, outside it and in the ground adjacent to the building. The results and their analysis reveal that indoor thermal conditions develop differently in rooms with earth-contact structures. Intermittent heating exerts an important influence on the shaping of temperature conditions in a basement and its vicinity.
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A method for determining synthetic flood hydrograph for small ungauged catchments is presented in the paper. The model uses the SCS excess rainfall model with daily precipitation of 1% exceedance probability as the input data. The excess rainfall is transformed to surface runoff by the geomorphological runoff model.
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Dynamics of changes in the Polish agriculture was undoubtedly affected the most by Poland's accession to the European Union. During the first years of the membership the EU agricultural policy based mainly on supporting economic development of agricultural farms in the new member states. After the introduction of Rural Development Policy (RDP) for the years 2007-2013, greater emphasis was put on the natural environment protection, rural development but also on the measures for farm support. The amount of money allocated to this objective in-creased but simultaneously the regulations concerning the requirements a farmer must fulfil to get the payment were tightened.Yearly changeability of cropping structure and acreage causes numerous troubles for farmers who apply for direct payments but also to farms implementing modernization projects because they have to makes yearly reporting concerning cropping structure for ARMA.At present, in order to obtain regional, national or EU subventions agricul-tural holding should submit annual reports of its agricultural activity. The paper suggests the use of GIS techniques to conduct spatial registration of agricultural parcels included in the crop rotation of the farm production. The created database will facilitate an analysis of agricultural farm production providing the information necessary for reporting required for direct ...
The long-term evolution of the river beds of Nida River in Pińczów and Wiślica gauging station as well as an analysis of the causes of significant cases of lowering of the bottom of stream beds are presented in the paper. The intensity of river bed evolution as a stochastic process is described with the use of a statistical model. The analysis of the intensity of the process of river bed erosion was con-ducted under the assumption that the observed long-term trend of the lowest annual water levels reflect the elevation of the river bottom in the same years. The recorded observations at the Pińczów and Wiślica gauging stations on the Nida River, covering over 70-year period of time, are analyzed. Observations of the variability in the studied bottom levels over the decades allow concluding that the great transformation of riverbeds occurred there. The observations and calculations show that in Pińczów multi-stream or meandering river bed changed into straight channel and the process of shallowing of the river bed appeared. At the Wiślica gauging station the process of riverbed erosion with the variable intensity was observed. The research shows that the causes of these changes observed in Pińczów and Wiślica are ...
There is a widespread and increasing interest in public-private partnership (PPP) in Poland as a mean of implementing public investment projects, resulting from the fact that the funds that are available to local governments, or EU funding, are not sufficient to meet all the investment needs. In the paper a comparative analysis of the size and structure of the public-private partnerships in the EU countries, with a particular focus on the Polish market is presented. Possibilities of investments based on public-private partnerships on rural areas are specified. The paper examines the recent trends in the PPP's market and describes how these changes and development may affect the infrastructural improvement on rural areas.
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