
Wojciech T WitkowskiAGH University of Krakow | AGH · Department of Mining Areas Protection, Geoinformatics and Mining Surveying
Wojciech T Witkowski
Dr.Eng.
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53
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Introduction
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March 2017 - present
October 2012 - February 2017
Publications
Publications (53)
Land subsidence poses a critical global challenge, particularly in low-lying, densely populated, and economically significant delta regions. While climate change drives sea-level rise, much of the contemporary relative sea-level rise is attributed to accelerated land subsidence caused by groundwater overexploitation. This leads to severe environmen...
The research objective was to determine whether and to what extent SAR data can be used to determine changes in the water level in small glacial lakes (with an area of ~1 km2). The research object was Lake Biskupińskie – a small post-glacial lake in central Poland. As part of the research, a methodology for determining water level in small-area lak...
Monitoring marine-terminating glaciers and their dynamics in the light of advancing climate change is a critical concern for many scientists. Observing marine-terminating glaciers in Greenland is especially significant because glacier calving and melting influence sea level. One component of glacier monitoring is velocity estimation, which can also...
Mining, a critical global economic activity, disturbs the geomechanical and hydrogeological equilibrium of aquifer systems. This disturbance becomes particularly evident after mining operations cease. In post-mining areas, one of the most significant phenomena is the groundwater rebound. This process restores original groundwater levels in depleted...
Mining-induced seismicity can damage buildings and surface infrastructure and cause fatalities. It is a growing concern, owing to the sudden occurrence of seismic events, lack of effective prediction capabilities, and associated consequences. In this study, we analyzed 13 high-energy mining-induced earthquakes from 2016 to 2020 in Poland's Legnica-...
The conducted research determined the temporal evolution of the displacement field for the Ponzano landslide case study. The offset-tracking method, so far used mainly for the relatively rapid but uniform displacement of glaciers, was tested for the 2017 study of the Ponzano landslide in Italy. The suitability of the method for high-resolution Terr...
Sinkholes are a common phenomenon in many parts of the world [1]. They can be caused by a combination of natural [2,3] and anthropogenic processes [4,5] occurring both in the subsurface and on the land surface and driven by various factors. One of the main origins of sinkholes is underground mining activity [6,7]. Mining requires a huge lowering of...
Monitoring glaciers and understanding changes in their dynamics is critical since glaciers' general condition and behaviour are indicators of climate change progress. Melting marine-terminating glaciers, in particular, pose a threat to global security as they are one of the major contributors to global sea-level rise. A rise of this magnitude endan...
Mining-induced sub-surface rock-failure processes cause seismicity and permanent surface deformation that may result in infrastructural damages and endanger residents in the affected areas. In recent years, this issue has received increasing attention due to the suddenness of the occurrence, the lack of effective predictive capabilities and the adv...
The international community is developing strategies to limit temperature increases in response to climate change. The current focus of global efforts is on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the largest fraction of which are caused by coal combustion. Particularly, the EU, at the forefront of the green energy transition, has experienced the most s...
The flooding of mine workings is the most common method for closing underground mines. The natural hydrodynamic balance of the aquifers is then restored in the rock mass depleted by mining operations. Consequently, increased pore pressure implies the occurrence of land surface uplift.
The closure of an underground mine has been evaluated primarily...
The study analyzes the changes in dynamics of the Jakobshavn Glacier in summer and winter in 2017 and 2021. Satellite radar observations and the available database were used for this. Moreover, the influence of the time baseline between SAR images on the quality of the results was also investigated. The velocities computed from Sentinel-1 images an...
The work focused on forecasting changes in lake water level. The study employed the Triple Diagram Method (TDM) using geostatistical tools. TDM estimates the value by information from an earlier two periods of observation, refers as lags. The best results were obtained for data with an average a 1-week lag. At the significance level of 1σ, a the fo...
The authors wish to make the following corrections to this paper [...]
Land subsidence due to mining is primarily caused by the removal of a deposit from a rock mass and the formation of a post-mining void. This type of land subsidence damages surface and underground infrastructure and adversely affects the safety of surface users. Underground mining, however, is also associated with the drainage of rock layers, for b...
One of the most serious direct consequences of underground mining is land subsidence, which can damage both surface and underground infrastructure and even put surface users' safety at risk.
Nonetheless, extensive pumping operations are necessary to carry out mining activity. Thus, the effect of coal extraction is attributed not only to land subsid...
Land subsidence caused by groundwater withdrawal induced by mining is a relatively unknown phenomenon. This is primarily due to the small scale of such movements compared to the land subsidence caused by deposit extraction. Nonetheless, the environmental impact of drainage related land subsidence remains underestimated. The research was carried out...
Horizontal strains related to mining-induced subsidence may endanger infrastructure and surface users' safety. While directional horizontal strains should be well determined, appropriate solutions for a complete assessment of the terrain surface deformation field are still required. As a result, the presented study examined a new method for calcula...
The marine-terminating glaciers are one of the biggest contributors to global sea-level rise. Research on this aspect of the effects of global climate change is developing nowadays in several directions. One of them is the monitoring of glacier movements, especially with satellite data. In addition to well-known analyzes based on radar data from av...
The objective of the research was to investigate the process of rock mass recompaction related to groundwater rebound induced by underground mining. Research has been conducted in the area of the closed copper ore mine (Konrad) as well as the anhydrite and gypsum mine (Lubichów) in south-eastern Poland.
The mining operation was carried out in the...
Mining exploitation is associated with the occurrence of adverse environmental effects. The most serious of such effects is land subsidence. Although land subsidence can be well predicted and mitigated by several methods, nevertheless, the extraction of mineral deposits is also associated with induced seismicity. The occurrence of seismic events ca...
One of the most common consequences of pumping water from groundwater reservoirs includes land surface movements. The main cause of this phenomenon is the excess use of groundwater resources, which leads to the development of continuous deformations. In Poland, the reduction of rock mass due to drainage is most often connected with mining operation...
Land subsidence is one of groundwater pumping probably the most evident environemntal effects. This phenomenon is induced by the dewatering of susceptible aquifer systems. Globally, freshwater demand is the leading cause of this phenomenon. Land subsidence induced by aquifer system drainage can reach total values up several meters. The spatial exte...
The presented research aimed to evaluate the spatio-temporal distribution of ground movements caused by groundwater head changes induced by mining. The research was carried out in the area of one of the copper ore and anhydrite mines in Poland. To determine ground movements, classical surveying results and the persistent scatter Satellite Radar Int...
The paper presents a computer program called SubCom v1.0 for determining mathematical model parameters of compaction layers in areas of oil, gas or groundwater extraction. A stochastic model based on the influence function was used to model compaction and subsidence. Estimation of the model parameters was based on solving the inverse problem. Two m...
The assessment of the impact of mining-induced seismicity on the natural environment and infrastructure is often limited to the analysis of terrain surface vibrations. However, similar seismic phenomena, like earthquakes, may also imply dislocations and deformations of the rock mass. Such ground movements may occur in areas which are not directly u...
Sinkholes are alarming and dangerous events, they have a worldwide
occurrence, and are imposing a potential risk to urban communities and the
widely developed built environment. Losses due to catastrophic sinkhole
collapse, foundation, pavement and structural repairs, occur more often, due
to the increased pressure to develop even on sinkhole prone...
Earthquake occurrence is usually unpredictable apart from sites in the vicinity of volcanoes. It is not easy to measure displacements caused by seismic phenomena using classical geodetic methods, which are based on point survey. Therefore, the surveying of ground movements caused by seismic events should be carried out continuously. Nowadays, remot...
Unexpectedly occurring sinkholes caused by shallow submerged voids are one of the key problems of intensively built-up post-mining areas. Five percent of Poland’s territory is still under the influence of post-mining deformation. Impending sinkholes, which tend to develop randomly over very large areas, cannot be detected by using traditional geoph...
Nowadays, human-induced seismicity is becoming an important issue for the general public. Increased interest in this subject is mostly associated with regions constantly exposed to this type of dynamic phenomena. In many cases, the occurrence of human-induced seismicity is implied by underground mining. Mining operations disturb the natural geomech...
The paper discusses medium-term water consumption forecasting based on popular methods of time series analysis, indicating their limitation and strict requirements for the statistical properties of the time series, such as being stationary or linear. Therefore, a new approach in this area is proposed, based on the kriging method. This method is a g...
Prediction and monitoring of earthquakes and human-induced seismicity is still a crucial issue primarily due to the random nature of that phenomena. The continuous monitoring of earthquakes made by seismology is well known and developed. The remaining effects of earthquakes – ground displacements, are much more problematic in measurement. Moreover,...
Anthropogenic activity related to the extraction of gas and oil, raw materials or water pumping leads to slow or rapid ground deformation. The ground motion rate is related to the type of the mined material, geological conditions, mining methods and other factors. Ground subsidence resulting from the collapse of underground post-mining voids occurs...
Badania ruchów powierzchni spowodowanych wstrząsami sejsmicznymi są kosztowne i kłopotliwe w planowaniu eksperymentu z uwagi na trudny do przewidzenia czas wystąpienia wstrząsu. Z tego względu jedynie ciągłe bądź quasi-ciągłe obserwacje mogą się przyczyniać do lepszego poznania tych zjawisk. Technologie teledetekcyjne, a w szczególności interferome...
The geodetic measurements optimization problem has played a crucial role in the mining areas affected by continuous ground movement. Such movements are most frequently measured with the classical geodetic methods such as levelling, tachymetry or GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System). The measuring techniques are selected with respect to the dyn...
Abstract: Dynamic phenomena, both anthropogenic and natural, usually occur unexpectedly, at high speed. During such an event, changes in ground surface morphology become rapid. What is more, permanent ground monitoring in the areas of that transformations is usually not carried out. Therefore, the comprehensive description of the effects of such ph...
Treść:
Problem optymalizacji pomiarów geodezyjnych na obszarach poddanych wpływom ciągłych deformacji powierzchni terenu wciąż stanowi wyzwanie. Pomiary ruchów powierzchni na terenach górniczych najczęściej wykonywane są przy wykorzystaniu klasycznych metod geodezyjnych takich jak niwelacja, tachimetria czy pomiary GNSS. Technika pomiarowa jest do...
The two-year period of the latest satellite mission of the European Space Agency provided images that support analysis of ground vertical displacement on the mining areas. Satellite Sentinel-1A gives the possibility of carrying out such investigation in the cycle of 12 days. In the article the comprehensive introduction to the technological aspects...
This article presents the problem of modelling drainage subsidence that accompanies the mining of solid minerals. Rock mass drainage causes a change in pressure in the aquifer, and thereby initiates the compaction process. On the surface we can observe the effect in the form of a wide drainage basin, which adds to the direct impact of mining operat...
Based on the previous studies conducted by the authors, a new approach was proposed, namely the tools of artificial intelligence. One of neural networks is a multilayer perceptron network (MLP), which has already found applications in many fields of science. Sequentially, a series of calculations was made for different MLP neural network configurat...