Abstract
The article deals with possibilities of brownfields using after mining and processing of mineral resources in the Slovak Republic, which represent not enough used or unused land, including administrative buildings or mechanical engineering objects. These types of brownfields are often accompanied by environmental burdens in various forms and levels of contamination of individual environmental components. Brownfields, whose degree of degradation and contamination is directly determined by the way of mining and processing of mineral resources, represent the so-called brown investments, which do not benefit the region where the brownfields are currently located. The article points to the current state of existence of environmental burdens as a result of mining and processing of mineral resources, which is also considered negative determinants of their occurrence. Based on the prioritization of negative and positive determinants of the possible use of brownfields after mining and processing of mineral resources, it concludes with a categorization of their possible further use.
Highlights
Brownfields after mining and processing of mineral resources were created as a result of radical changes in socio-economic structure, characterized by the shift of labor from primary to secondary and currently to tertiary of the sphere of civil life [1, 2]
100 environmental burdens occur in the Slovak Republic due to mining and processing of mineral resources, while 44.0% of them are likely, 24.0% confirmed and 32.0% reclaimed. 59.0% of environmental burdens from the use of the raw material base are currently the burdens from the extraction of the raw material base and 41.1% from its processing, or storage, while most of them are environmental burdens from the mining of ore raw materials (36.0%) and the least from the extraction of non-metallic raw materials 4.0% (Fig. 1) [5]
The negative factors of the existence of brownfields after mining and processing of mineral resources were included: occurrence of heaps (D1) and sludge ponds (D2), reduction of the aesthetic character of the landscape environment (D3), occurrence of environmental burdens (D4), devastated building objects (D5), soil (D6), reduced biodiversity (D7), and we quantified values of their weights αi for the need to define their prioritization in the process of identifying their potential use (Table 2)
Summary
Brownfields after mining and processing of mineral resources were created as a result of radical changes in socio-economic structure, characterized by the shift of labor from primary (agriculture, forestry) to secondary (industry and construction) and currently to tertiary (trade, transport, services, public administration) of the sphere of civil life [1, 2]. In addition to the occurrence of heaps and sludge ponds, the types of brownfields are characterized by machine-technological equipment residues, which may contain fillings with chemical compounds which are risk for environmental quality and human health [4] In addition, the surrounding of brownfields is clearly identifiable in the landscape environment and in terms of environmental quality, high-risk [6] As it was mentioned above, it is possible to consider their occurrence on the territory of the Slovak Republic negative because their reuse would reduce the reduction of environmental quality, aesthetic character of the country, biodiversity, economic performance of the region in which they are localized. This symmetrical matrix corresponds to the fact that the method is based on the interactive comparison of all predefined determinants of the same rank with the evaluation in Table 1 [1, 7]
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