EXPERIENCE WITH ENVIRONMENT MONITORING OF CRACOW REGION (POLAND) BASED ON GIS 
Zbigniew Sitek 
Prof.Dr., Department of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Informatics 
Stanislaw Staszic University of Mining and Metallurgy, Cracow, Poland 
Commission VII, Working Group 7 
KEY WORDS: GIS, Environment, Inventory, Pollution, Database 
ABSTRACT 
The multipurpose environmental monitoring was built for Cracow region. The aim of the project was to establish a local 
system that supports monitoring of short and long term changes in terrestrial ecosystems and simultaneously support 
sustainable development of the region. 
For environment monitoring the three following software 
8.1. 
packages were used: IDRISI, GRASS and ERDAS Imagine 
The geographic, terrain relief, thematic data and pollution influence information was collected and registered creating 
the database of sources. Those bases were converted and transferred to the fundamental geographic database. 
Using databases, software, and hardware assessment of soils erosion susceptibility was investigated and a proper 
map was created as well as land-use, digital hypsometric and other maps showing various pollution of water, air and 
Soils. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
With reference to twelfth session of the International Co- 
ordinating Council for the Programme on Man and the 
Biosphere (MAB) held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris 
1993, as well as UNESCO'S United Nations Conference 
on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio 
de Janeiro 1992 - one of the priority themes is esta- 
blishing Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS), 
designed to detect the responses of terrestrial eco- 
systems to global change. The Programme suggests 
setting up laboratory regions for land use planning and 
appropriate forms of sustainable development. Having 
financial support (Grant) of the Committee for Scientific 
Research of the Polish Government - the multipurpose 
monitoring system was built up for Cracow region. 
Much of the material presented in this paper has been 
developed during three years of project realisation by my 
17-persons team. To the five main project performers 
belong: Wiadystaw Mierzwa, Stanistaw Mularz, Krystian 
Pyka, Andrzej Wróbel and myself. 
2. STUDY AREA OF CRACOW LABORATORY 
REGION 
The study area is located in the southern part of Poland 
and around the city of Cracow approximately in the 
centre of the square-shape site of 40 x 40 km. The range 
of the terrain height of the area is 188m to 480m in rela- 
tion to the sea level and is morphologically diversified. In 
the centre of the area, from West to East the only 
relatively flat part presents the valley of Vistula River. 
The valley divides this area into two sub-areas, both 
morphologically diversified. This is a result of geologic 
structure, which is responsible for the majority of relief 
features. The north sub-area has an upland nature with 
tablelands forms and dip rectilinear valleys. The south 
sub - area have a upland relief dendritic type. 
Morphologically the study area is a jointer zone of the 
three provinces: Carpathian Mountains, Sub-Carpathians 
Dell and Silesian Upland. 
Laboratory region contains also a dozen of smaller river 
valleys. Several industrial plants are located in this 
region. Some of them like steel-works and heat 
generating plant are responsible for the main part of the 
industrial pollution of all environmental components, 
mainly air, water, soil and vegetation cover. 
The Cracow region is densely populated. From the 
ecological point of view, the study area belongs to the 
most polluted regions of Poland. The range and 
character of degradation and negative transformations 
classify the ecological state of the area as catastrophic. 
3. RESEARCH WORK OF THE PROJECT 
The need for an integrated system for detecting and 
monitoring terrestrial responses to global change has 
been recognised a long time ago. The aim of the project 
was to establish a local system that supports monitoring 
of short, and long term changes in terrestrial 
ecosystems. Such system provides ecological knowledge 
for sustainable development of  biosphere. The 
knowledge which possess data about the natural 
resources, about farming and industry local soils and 
waters etc. However, it always has to be up-to-date 
information. This kind of monitoring support sustainable 
development in ecological regions. 
The following main tasks were carried out in the project 
(Sitek, 1993): 
- methodology elaboration for information collection and 
its incorporation in GIS data base stored directly from 
the terrain or by remote sensing; 
- usability estimation of different Geographic Information 
Systems and data manipulation techniques With 
relation to management, analysis and display data of 
different polluted environmental elements; 
- digital terrain model generation for study area; 
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International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B7. Vienna 1996