Planning and Environmetal Conditions for Protection of the Area of Documented Brown Coal Deposits in the Dolnoslaskie Voivodeship

Abstract

The need to designate functional areas with respect to strategic mineral deposits, and their inclusion in spatial development plans arising from government documents such as the National Spatial Development Concept 2030, requires the development of delimitation criteria for such areas and an associated analysis of the conditions existing within the boundaries of documented brown coal deposits. The analysis should include a full range of criteria (i.e. geological, mining, spatial, environmental, social, economic, etc.) and needs to be done with methodology that guarantees the most objective assessment. This paper proposes the application of methodology based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process in order to assess the significance of environmental and planning conditions in conflict with the protection and potential development of brown coal deposits. In particular, it is recommended that the aim be to identify both the greatest and the least conflicting conditions and areas. This research, realized using the example of the Lower Silesian brown coal deposits with particular focus on that of Legnica, includes a description of the environmental conditions, an analysis of the designations of the studies of conditions and directions of spatial development in local communes, as well as the coverage of deposit areas with local spatial development plans. It has been found that the most significant environmental and planning conditions influencing the possibility to protect and exploit brown coal deposits are as follows: nature protection areas (weight 0.19), cultural heritage (weight 0.14), built-up areas (weight 0.09), and underground and surface waters (weight 0.09). These results may be used to select areas of the most (co-occurrence of various and significant land use forms) and the least conflicting areas, and further to aid sustainable spatial development policy on all levels of public administration.