A new life begins here

Silesia is still Poland’s most industrialized region, which over the decades has accumulated enormous infrastructural potential. The province is also the region most affected by the consequences of climate change adaptation. Although it has been undergoing transformation for nearly three decades, today it faces its greatest and most difficult challenges. Our system focuses on assessing the potential for reusing post-mining land for economic as well as social purposes.

Thanks to EU support, we have created a widely available e-service OPI-TPP 2.0. The system provides information about post-mining areas in a simple and attractive way. It includes not only the list of sites, but also a collection of a great deal of systematized data on landforms, their development, and formal and legal information about the site.

The tool is a great support for entrepreneurs, urban planners, scientists and governments (both at the local and regional level) who can use them for optimal planning of new functions and opportunities for using post-mining areas. Our service reduces the time it takes to find information, increases its quality and credibility, and highlights the potential of the areas that were once used by the mining industry. Importantly, the system depicts post-mining areas as part of a larger, interconnected network operating within the region, making them easier to manage.

The biggest challenge for us were the rapid changes in the region’s transformation. We faced situations when areas, that have already been described, changed their character, were transformed or acquired new functions, which affected not only the individual data, but also the potential of neighboring areas.

In developing the system, we used the approach previously known from the e-commerce services market, abandoning the geo-portal and targeting solutions that are more intuitive and accessible to a wider range of users.

In the case of Jaworzno, as in the case of any other city whose development in the past was based primarily on mining, it is necessary to develop methods for restoring the use value of land after the mining industry. Despite the limitations, these spaces now have a lot to offer. In our city you can see a great number of examples showing good development of these sites. Unique places with natural and recreational functions have been created in the former pits, such as the GEOsfera Center for Ecological and Geological Education, where we preserved unusual rock remains from hundreds of thousands of years ago, Sosina Park, located on a picturesque lake, the popular “Polish Maldives,” or Gródek Park. In the very center of the city, on the site of the decommissioned “Kosciuszko” shaft of the former Jaworzno coal mine, we now have the “Galena” shopping mall, which is a popular shopping destination.

For our city, it is of great importance to free up more investment land, which in the past belonged to mines. At the moment, Jaworzno has more than 300 hectares of such areas. These are huge stretches of land that could be really attractive to entrepreneurs, provided they are given full information about the site’s past and the possible effects of the past mining activities. They can clear dispell any doubts or confusion with concrete data, analysis and conclusions about, for example, possible techniques and costs of land treatment for operations. By sharing data with investors, our city can stage transparent negotiations on the development of more investment spaces.

The system created by GIG supports the promotion of the region’s post-mining areas. It helps build their new image and fights stereotypes according to which these are unfit or socially and economically unattractive places. For years, our city has invested in development policies based on modern planning and management methods. This system perfectly fits our needs.