ALBERT

Description: The paper presents nearly 150 years of history of ice research conducted on Polish lakes. In the first stage, these were observations and expedition studies that had an exploratory purpose. It was not until the 1920s that stationary measurements on several lakes were introduced. Unfortunately, the outbreak of World War II interrupted these observations. After the war, they were resumed in 1946, but the real beginning of investigations of ice phenomena on lakes is taken to be 1960. At present, stationary measurements of ice phenomena are conducted on about 70 lakes located mainly in northern Poland. Besides the purely explorative purpose, experimental research on ice phenomena on lakes has also contributed to the development of a measurement methodology. The author of this paper took part in numerous experimental studies conducted on over 30 lakes for which the ice results are partially presented below.

Description: The following study identifies areas where adverse conditions related to benzene pollution are concurrent with leukaemia incidence and mortality (C91–C95). Moreover, it determines the similarities between benzene and leukaemia levels, as well and rules defining their co-occurrence. The analysis covered the period of 2015–2017. Data were obtained from Dane.gov.pl (number of leukaemia cases), the Polish National Cancer Registry website (number of deaths), the Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office (population data) and the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection and the Air Quality Portal (data on air quality). Based on the conducted analysis, it was concluded that the following poviat towns have an unfavourable epidemic situation related to leukaemia: Kielce (incidence), Rzeszów (incidence), Elbląg (mortality); meanwhile, high leukaemia incidence and mortality co-occurred with high average benzene concentration in 2015–2017 in the following poviat towns: Kielce, Rybnik, Płock and Rzeszów. It was found that leukaemias belonging to the three-character ICD-10 categories C94, C95 and C92 show the highest rate of co-occurrence with benzene concentration. In addition, two main rules for the co-occurrence of benzene pollution and leukaemia were identified. It was also noted that it is necessary to continue the research for a longer time period, especially in the poviat towns of Kielce and Rzeszów.

Description: The model was constructed based on GIS spatial analyses, combined with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Multi-Criterion Analysis method (MCA). The data gathered for the study were mainly from remote-sensing images, statistical data and surveys. Field experiments were conducted in Trinh Tuong Commune, Bat Xat District, Lao Cai province. This is a typical remote mountainous region of Vietnam in which flash floods often occur. The study analyzes and evaluates six primary factors that incite flash flood, namely: geomorphological characteristics, soil properties, forest and fractional vegetation cover types, local drainage basin slopes, maximum average rainfall of various years, and the river/stream density of the region. The zoning map showing flash flood potentials has determined that 19.91% of the area had an extremely high risk of flash flood occurrence, 64.92% of the area had a medium risk, and 15.17% had a low or very low risk. Based on the employment of daily maximum rainfalls as the primary factor, an online flash flood warning model was constructed for areas with a “high” or “very high” risk of flash flood occurrence.

Description: Riverbank erosion is one of the most hazardous disaster types for Bangladesh. It has both a direct and a negative impact on people and their livelihoods. This study aims to explore the impacts of Meghna riverbank erosion and the coping strategies that have been adopted by the affected people to combat this calamity, considering four unions under Matlab Uttar of Chadpur District. The findings reveal that the occupational status, income and expenditure of the affected people have changed due to erosion. Ninety-one percent of the respondents’ houses were fully damaged and 48% of them are living in shelter houses. The results also show that a large portion of the affected populace lost their assets and most of them are suffering from psychological distress. Around 87% of people borrowed money to cope with this hazard, and a strict law against sand dredging is recommended as one of the effective strategies to prevent Meghna river bank erosion.

Description: This paper analyses extreme precipitation characteristics of Turkey based on selected WMO climate change indices. The indices – monthly total rainy days (RDays); monthly maximum 1-day precipitation (Rx1day); simple precipitation intensity index (SDII); and monthly count of days when total precipitation (represented by PRCP) exceeds 10 mm (R10mm) – were calculated for 98 stations for the 38-year overlapping period (1975–2012). Cluster analysis was applied to evaluate the spatial characterisation of the annual precipitation extremes. Four extreme precipitation clusters were detected. Cluster 1 corresponds spatially to Central and Eastern Anatolia and is identified with the lowest values of the indices, except rainy days. Cluster 2 is concentrated mainly on the west and south of Anatolia, and especially the coastal zone, and can be characterised with the lowest rainy days, and high and moderate values of other indices. These two clusters are the most prominent classes throughout the country, and include a total of 82 stations. Cluster 3 is clearly located in the Black Sea coastal zone in the north, and has high and moderate index values. Two stations on the north-east coast of the Black Sea region are identified as Cluster 4, which exhibits the highest values among all indices. The overall results reveal that winter months and October have the highest proportion of precipitation extremes in Turkey. The north-east part of the Black Sea region and Mediterranean coastal area from the south-west to the south-east are prone to frequent extreme precipitation events.

Description: The recent developments in spatial data collection, management and software require the availability of proper geodetic infrastructures for integrating different types and sources of coordinates without causing effective changes in positions. Nowadays, positions are mostly collected by GNSS data collectors based on WGS84/ITRF reference systems. The data are then subjected to transformations and projections to a locally used system. Another possibility is direct data collection based on the local coordinate system by classical surveys using land surveying, photogrammetry, laser scanning, etc. The spatial data management is commonly operated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software for mapping, analysis, planning, and other services. The conversions between different coordinate systems should be well defined to guarantee the consistency of the coordinates on all systems and tools. In Palestine, the classical and local surveys are all based on the local coordinate system Pal1923Grid for engineering, cadastral and planning applications. The different GNSS RTK-service providers use different definitions and transformation methods between WGS84 or the International Terrestrial Reference Frames (ITRF) and the local Palestine1923Grid, whereas the Land authority has adopted a group of parameters to be implemented on the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) data collectors, which do not fit with Palestine1923Grid properties. Additionally, different transformation methods are used in GIS applications for converting the coordinates between the different systems using WGS84 as an intermediate system. Here, the coordinates of a group of the geodetic network in the West Bank of Palestine are used to assess the accuracy of the different transformations and systems by comparing the transformed coordinates using the GNSS system and the originally registered coordinates. Furthermore, a grid of points covering the coordinate system extents is used to describe the differences between the transformations and systems. It was found that the parameters provided by GNSS service providers have results that are consistent with each other and the geodetic network in the West Bank of Palestine compared to GIS-software parameters. By contrast, all systems have extremely deteriorated coordinates in the Gaza strip and the further parts of the Pal1923Grid extents.

Description: The purpose of this work is to assess the main parameters of the Chukotka and Kolyma glaciers (small forms of glaciation, SFG): their size and volume, and changes therein over time. The point as to whether these SFG can be considered glaciers or are in transition into, for example, rock glaciers is also presented. SFG areas were defined from the early 1980s (data from the catalogue of the glaciers compiled by R.V. Sedov) to 2005, and up to 2017: these data were retrieved from satellite images. The maximum of the SGF reduction occurred in the Chantalsky Range, Iskaten Range, and in the northern part of Chukotka Peninsula. The smallest retreat by this time relates to the glaciers of the southern part of the peninsula. Glacier volumes are determined by the formula of S.A. Nikitin for corrie glaciers, based on in-situ volume measurements, and by our own method: the average glacier thickness is calculated from isogypsum patterns, constructed using DEMs of individual glaciers based on images taken from a drone during field work, and using ArcticDEM for others.

Description: In this paper, the stability of sulphur (II) compounds determined as the sum of hydrogen sul-phide, hydrosulphides and sulphides was evaluated in groundwater sourced from the B-8b Michał intake. Sulphide waters are a valuable raw material used as a basis for spa treatment in Busko-Zdrój. Based on the chemical composition analyses conducted in the years 1946–2018, a general analysis of random variability and statistical analysis of data was performed using PS IMAGO 5.0.1 software. Stability assessment was carried out on the data set for the 2009–2018 period on the basis of individual measurement control charts. Trend analysis was also performed using the GWSDAT software.

Description: This study documents the evolution of severe thunderstorm outbreaks that occurred on 10 and 11 August, 2017 in Poland. This study used cloud-to-ground lightning-strike data from the PERUN lightning detection network managed by the Polish Institute of Meteorology and Water Management – National Research Institute. In the description of storm phenomena the authors also applied synoptic maps, meteorological radar data, vertical atmosphere soundings and meteorological data from the station in Poland. The aim of this study was to trace the causes of the upward movement of supercells including the Mesoscale Convective System day by day, and to examine relationships between lighting distributions on 10 and 11 August, 2017. In Poland, on August 10, 2017, 154,524 cloud-to-ground flashes (CG) occurred, and 56,510 CG flashes the next day. On August 10, around 18% of all flashes had a positive current, but 29% the next day. The spatial distribution of the lightning in Poland was computed for 10×10-km grid cells. Based on the map analysis it was found that on those two days most of the positive flashes occurred in Greater Poland and Kuyavian-Pomeranian voivodeships, as well as on the border of Opolskie and Lower Silesia.

Description: The article describes the occurrence of selected weather phenomena that are hazardous to aviation (thunderstorms, hail, fog and glaze) in Bydgoszcz. The work employs 1971–2010 data from the Bydgoszcz-Airport meteorological station. The hazardous atmospheric phenomena selected for analysis hinder or sometimes even prevent aviation. Of the analysed weather phenomena in Bydgoszcz, those most hazardous to aviation are fog and thunderstorms. The average annual numbers of days featuring them exceed 71 and 14, respectively. The analysis shows that statistically significant threats to aviation have decreased, e.g. number of days with fog (by 4.76 days/10 yrs) and days with thunderstorms (by 1.68 days/10 yrs). However, no clear trends can be seen for the number of days with hail (decrease of 0.14 days/10 yrs) and days with glaze (an increase of 0.16 days/10 yrs).