Martina Zeleňáková

Evaluation of environmental impact assessment effectiveness in Slovakia

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) practice in Slovakia is about 20 years old. EIA was first introduced in Slovakia based on the Environment Law of 1992. The practice in EIA started developing shortly after the Law No. 127/1994 Coll. came into force. The first group of experts was certified as being EIA/strategic environmental assessment (SEA) professionally qualified persons. During 20 years, the numbers of EIA procedures were performed and number of EIA practitioners has considerably increased. Many discussions arise about EIA procedure effectiveness and quality in Slovakia. The task of this study has been to investigate EIA system applications in Slovakia and evaluate its effectiveness. In this paper, the views of professionally qualified persons are examined closely, using a questionnaire survey. Data from the questionnaires are analysed to find information relating to current EIA/SEA and EIA/SEA practice and the future for EIA. The objective of this study was to assess the potential for improving the effectiveness of EIA in Slovakia, and finally the recommendations for improvement are presented. The results of this research suggest that the use of new legislation should be extended in Slovakia in order to improve EIA effectiveness.

Methodology of flood risk assessment from flash floods based on hazard and vulnerability of the river basin

Flood protection is a society-wide task. The basic rules of prevention in flood protection are stipulated by the regulation of a secondary right of the European Union—Directive of the European Parliament and Council 2007/60/EC on assessment and management of flood risks. The paper is focused on preliminary flood risk assessment of flash floods. The task was to obtain knowledge on the spatial variability of flood risk from flash floods and in doing so supplement a preliminary flood risk assessment already conducted in 2011 for the purpose of proposing suitable flood mitigation measures for reducing the risk found. Flood risk in this study is understood as a combination of flood hazard and vulnerability. The main part of the work is devoted to the proposal of a methodological approach for preliminary flood risk assessment of flash floods. Application of the proposed approach in Bodva river basin, southern Slovakia, is described in the results section.

Environmental Impact Assessment—State of the Art

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is now 44 years old (beginning on 1 January 1970 when President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act in the USA). EIA is a systematic approach to identifying and evaluating positive and negative impacts on components of the environment that may arise from the implementation of infrastructure projects or policies (Petts 1999; Wang et al. 2006; Gilbuena et al. 2013). EIA is a mandatory process before approval of infrastructure projects with significant impacts on the environment (Tamura et al. 1994), such as roads (Zhou and Sheate 2011), water supply systems (Al-agha and Mortaja 2005) and flood protection constructions (Ludwig et al. 1995). Flood protection structures (FPS) have been created throughout the centuries to mitigate flood damage (Poulard et al. 2010; Gilbuena et al. 2013).

Determination of the potential economic flood damages in Medzev, Slovakia: Economic flood damages in Medzev, Slovakia

1 Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Košice, Košice, Slovakia 2 Slovak Water Management Enterprise, s.c., Košice, Slovakia 3 Department of Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Košice, Košice, Slovakia 4 Department of Hydraulic Structures, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

Using Risk Analysis for Flood Protection Assessment

Introduction.- 1. Environmental impact assessment - State of the art.- 2. Risk analysis in impact assessment.- 3. Case study - flood protection measures in the Kruzlov municipality.- 4. Conclusions and recommendations.- Appendices: description of individual parameters.

Environmental impact assessment of structural flood mitigation measures: a case study in Šiba, Slovakia

The proposed flood mitigation measures in the Slovak Republic are subject of environmental impact assessment (EIA) process before its approval. The paper elaborates and demonstrates the application of the risk analysis method for evaluating alternatives, which is core in EIA. Risk analysis is an appropriate tool to determine the level of the risk of the proposed flood mitigation measures and through which it is possible to choose the alternative with the lowest level of risk for the environment. The article presents the application of the developed methodology based on universal matrix of risk analysis in Šiba village that is in existing flood risk. It analyses and discusses the results of the impact assessment from EIA practice in the Slovakia. The aim of the work is to improve existing qualitative and quantitative methods for assessing the impacts of proposed activities on the environment. Developed methodology stimulates creative approaches in searching of the best alternative to proposed activities (constructions) that are environmentally friendly. Innovation in this paper is presented by an implementation of universal matrix of risk analysis for flood mitigation measures (developed by the authors) for the purposes of EIA process.

Drought Regionalization Based on Low Flow Trends in Selected River Basins in Slovakia

An important function in both engineering hydrology and integrated catchment area management is performed by statistical analysis. This paper presents the trend analysis of low water flows in selected rivers in Eastern Slovakia. There are many statistical methods for data evaluation. The most of useful, presented in this paper, is the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test. This analysis was carried out for statistical data from 63 river stations lying in the eastern part of Slovakia, namely in Hornád, Poprad, Bodva, Bodrog river basins. The data were obtained from the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute, Regional Centre Košice. Because the low flow data are not comparable for the individual stations, normally it is only possible to do the statistical analysis for each river station separately. The relative sizes of the low stream flow trends in individual river stations were calculated as directives of the trend lines. Using ArcView GIS was created thematic map from geographical map of Eastern Slovakia and was performed hydrological drought risk regionalization.

Surface Runoff in Urban Area – Case Study

The world’s population nowadays is concentrated in urban areas. This change in demography has brought land-use and land-cover changes that have a number of documented effects on stream flow. The most consistent effect is an increase in impervious surfaces within urban catchments, which alters the hydrology and geomorphology of streams. In addition to imperviousness, runoff from urbanized surfaces as well as municipal and industrial discharges results in increasing floods in urbanized areas as it decreasing river bed capacity for flow. Rainwater management should be considered as a sustainable strategy for reconstruction of rural and urban settlements from the aspects of environmental management and social criteria. The paper presents the current state of runoff condition in the study area taking into account the urban development in the last 30 years, mainly newly built hypermarkets. The goal of the study was an evaluation of surface condition, calculation of the runoff coefficient and design of potential measures to stabilize conditions in the drainage basin of Myslavský creek in eastern part of Slovakia.

Hydrological Drought Occurrence in Slovakia

The chapter presents the problem of drought and describes its classification and methods of assessing this risk. The aim of this chapter is to identify statistically significant trends in streamflow characteristics of low water content in the Eastern Slovakia, which are used in the evaluation of hydrological drought. In this thesis is presented a new methodology for evaluating hydrological drought based on statistical analysis of observed minimal flows at selected 63 gauging stations in Eastern Slovakia for a 32-year period. Mann-Kendall statistical test identifies the frequency of minimal flow trends: in individual gauging stations, in river basins (Poprad, Hornad, Bodva, Bodrog to throughout Eastern Slovakia), and also in groups of gauging stations with the same physicogeographical parameters. Size of the flow trends is identified by directives of the trend lines. The procedure is also applied in assessing the impact of human activities and the impact of physicogeographical factors for the emergence of hydrological drought. Obtained results from the statistically significant trends in the flows are established prediction of hydrological drought risk in each month of the hydrological year in Eastern Slovakia.

Percolation of Water from Surface Runoff – Case Studies

At present great emphasis is placed on draining rainwater from town and village lands through percolation facilities, which represent a sustainable method of handling precipitation water from surface runoff. Therefore, the work is focused on experimental insitu analysis for resolving the percolation of rainwater from surface runoff. The study focused on determining the filtration coefficient, for which existing percolation facilities were used, so-called percolation shafts in two study areas, on the basis of confrontation of theoretical and practical analyses. The use of percolation facilities is demonstrated in the work; this represents an effective method of draining precipitation water from surface runoff for a specific project design.