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Coal mining activities are causing an extensive range of environmental issues at both operating and abandoned mine sites. It is one of the most environmentally destructive practices, with the capability to eliminate fauna and flora, impact the groundwater system, and pollute the soil, air, and water. The Czech Republic relies almost exclusively on coal as its primary domestic source of energy. The combined reserves of hard and brown coals in this country are 705 million tons. About 50 million tons of coal is produced annually, making it the 14th biggest producer in the world. Soil degradation is an inevitable outcome of the coal production from surface coal mining procedures in the Czech Republic. Significant changes have taken place in soil productivity, hydraulic characteristics, horizon, and texture as a result of soil pollution, bioturbation, compaction, and weathering. The current review has evaluated the impact of reclamation and coal mining on soil characteristics, including biological, chemical, and physical properties. Additionally, the study has outlined the process of soil formation in reclamation areas in the Czech Republic. In nutshell, research gaps and future directions in understanding coal mining areas and their influences on soils in the Czech Republic are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents measurements of activity concentrations of natural radionuclides in selected water and soil samples taken from areas affected by the uranium industry in the surroundings of Pribram, Straž pod Ralskem and Mydlovary, Czech Republic. In these areas, the dose equivalent rate was also determined at the sampling locations and additionally also during walkabouts in the surroundings of sludge fields. The activity concentration of water samples was 0.06 ± 0.02 BqL-1 for 226Ra and 0.07 ± 0.07 mgL-1 for 238U while the mean activity concentrations of soil samples were 74 ± 70 Bqkg-1 and 80 ± 77 Bqkg-1 for 226Ra and 238U, respectively. The average value of the dose equivalent rate was of 0.15 ± 0.1 µSvh-1. These values conform with the nature of the industrial activities which were carried out in the areas and are comparable with measurement results in similar locations worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article is dealing with the issue of limestone in V4 countries, in the countries, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. The limestone is intensely mined because it has a multilateral use: it serves as gravel, building stone, peculiarly coloured varieties are used as a decorative stone; the largest quantity is consumed in the production of cement and lime. In the metallurgy, limestone (high percentile) is an important slag-forming additive; in confectionery is the source of necessary CO2. At the beginning of the article, are analysed the general properties, formation and composition of limestone. It is followed by mining and preparation and processing of limestone. In the part of the article dealing with production, are parts focused on the production of V4 countries, but also part dealing with the production of concrete products and their use in the industrial sectors. Data collected about export and import of the limestone led to the acquisition of business analyses and the creation of maps for better visualisation of acquired knowledge. In the article are processed data of limestone, its production in V4 countries and export and import, which were statistically processed and evaluated by the test Wilcoxon /Kruskal-Walis. As can be seen from the collected data and its processing, the business has a local character. The biggest producer is Poland, followed by the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Biggest exporter of the limestone is Poland; the biggest importer is the Czech Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The special mining method called as mining without subsidence was used for mining in the protection pillar at the CSM mine in Czech Republic. The room and pillar method with different modification was applied for these reasons. The experience of this pilot project is described in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Czech part of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (Moravian-Silesian region, Czech Republic), there are many deposits of endogenous combustion (e.g., localized burning soil bodies, landfills containing industrial waste, or slag rocks caused by mining processes). The Hedwig mining dump represents such an example of these sites where, besides the temperature and the concentrations of toxic gases, electric and non-electric quantities are also monitored within the frame of experimentally proposed and patented technology for heat collection (the so-called "Pershing" system). Based on these quantities, this paper deals with the determination and evaluation of negative heat sources and the optimization of the positive heat source dependent on measured temperatures within evaluation points or on a thermal profile. The optimization problem is defined based on a balance of the heat sources in the steady state while searching for a local minimum of the objective function for the heat source. From an implementation point of view, it is the interconnection of the numerical model of the heat collector in COMSOL with a user optimization algorithm in MATLAB using the LiveLink for MATLAB. The results are elaborated in five case studies based on the susceptibility testing of the numerical model by input data from the evaluation points. The tests were focused on the model behavior in terms of preprocessing for measurement data from each chamber of the heat collector and for the estimated value of temperature differences at 90% and 110% of the nominal value. It turned out that the numerical model is more sensitive to the estimates in comparison with the measured data of the chambers, and this finding does not depend on the type optimization algorithm. The validation of the model by the use of the mean-square error led to the finding of optimal value, also valid with respect to the other evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]