Henrieta Pavolová

This study examines the environmental risks associated with talc mining in Slovakia, focusing on various aspects. It applies a structured risk assessment methodology to evaluate the probability and severity of environmental impacts stemming from talc extraction, flotation, and tailings pond operations. Key stressors include chemical pollutants such as oils, diesel, and flotation reagents, as well as physical disruptions like georelief alteration and vegetation loss. The findings highlight high environmental risks from technical infrastructure leaks and tailings pond operations, particularly regarding groundwater contamination and landscape modification. Moderate risks were identified in diesel and oil substance leakage, while flotation processes posed minimal risk. The research underscores the need for improved risk mitigation strategies, such as enhanced monitoring and containment systems, to protect local ecosystems and water resources. The study contributes to a better understanding of the long-term environmental impacts of mineral resource exploitation and provides a foundation for more sustainable mining practices.

Ecotourism represents a modern form of tourism that accepts the principles of sustainable development and the adequacy of the conditions of tourist destinations. The environmental awareness of all parties participating in tourism, objects, and subjects of tourism determines the development of ecotourism. Ecohotels, or “green hotels”, as an integral part of ecotourism, represent tourist accommodation facilities that have the “The Flower” certificate, their business activities minimize the impact on environmental quality. The management of ecohotels therefore implements programs and measures determining sustainable competitiveness at the local, regional, and supra-regional levels in the business in interaction with reducing the carbon footprint, water consumption, energy consumption, and waste production. They also support the use of recyclable materials and bio-products and the introduction of environmental management respecting the principles of green management in all areas of the tourism business. The competitiveness of ecohotels is in interaction with the willingness of tourists to use their pro-environmental services. The presented study is focused on the willingness of tourists to use the services of ecohotels, with an emphasis on identifying an effective strategy for supporting the development of ecotourism in the Slovak Republic. The study concentrates on the willingness of tourists to use ecohotels as part of their tourist activities based on a questionnaire survey. The study identifies the factors of strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats of the use of ecohotels by tourists in supporting the development of ecotourism. Through the exact quantification of the weights of individual factors in terms of Saaty’s matrix and a SWOT analysis, an effective strategy for the use of ecohotels in supporting the development of ecotourism is defined. In recent years, the stimulation and use of tourists’ interest in environmental quality, with an emphasis on reducing negative impacts on the environment, has resonated; thus, a model of effective marketing strategy is presented.

Turbulent political and economic changes in 1989 caused the gradual decline of the mining industry in the Slovak Republic. Abandoned territorial localities were created, affected by mining activity, without any use with devastated mining objects, or even a certain form of environmental burden. These territorial locations used for mining in the past, unused currently, in varying degrees of devastation, are referred to as mining brownfields. This issue is topical, as there is constant urbanization of new territories. Mining brownfields often represent a certain form of territorial reserve to support tourism development. The present study deals with identifying the tourist potential of the Fedö shaft mining brownfield in the Červenica—Dubník area (Slovakia), which is included in the list of national cultural monuments. The study points out the need for reclamation from the point of view of supporting the development of a tourist destination based on the accessible mining brownfield—the Jozef tunnel—making it possible to use the interaction links of both mining brownfields in the investigated area of tourism. Based on the results of the conducted SWOT analysis, the study presents the quantification of the tourism development support potential of the analyzed mining brownfield. It also includes selected environmental, social, and economic aspects of the reclamation, and the definition of an effective strategy for usage of the examined mining brownfield as a tool to support tourism development. The article concludes a model of effective management of the use of mining brownfields in the field of tourism in Slovakia, which is constructed as open and modifiable in its interaction with the specification of diverse conditions of tourist destinations with integrated mining brownfields, which include old mine works.

Benchmarking is a process of improving organizational performance by recognizing, comprehending, adjusting, and incorporating the most effective practices and procedures observed either within or outside an organization. Benchmarking creates, primarily in industrial sectors, clearly identified opportunities for the use of processes and resources, and detecting the continuous improvement of their performance. From the point of view of a systemic approach to the management of the efficiency of the performance of industrial organizations based on benchmarking, it is possible to increase competitiveness in interaction with economic improvements. The objective of this study is to assess the potential of benchmarking in a business, with a particular focus on the economic aspect, by a systematic approach, and to propose a model for selecting the research segment, based on an international company operating across multiple countries worldwide. The study concentrates on the technical equipment of quarries in EU countries, where the company operates, employing benchmarking, a benchmark index, and statistical methods. The proposed model was designed in an open way that can be expanded and generalized for other manufacturing and non-manufacturing enterprises. The model is flexible and adaptable to the specifics of other sectors as regards the need to improve management with an emphasis on making management more efficient, and thereby supporting sustainable development.

Slovakia has a long and distinguished tradition in the field of mining and in the processing of raw materials such as gold, silver, copper, and iron ores. In medieval times, the area that is today’s Slovakia was one of the most important producers and processors of sulfide ore, which was processed specifically by flotation. Flotation waste is the remains of fine-grained materials that are deposited in sludge beds after mining and mineral processing activities. Flotation waste also contains residues of heavy metals, which can pose a potential risk to the surrounding environment. The areas with this deposited material (heaps and sludge beds) have been classified as an environmental threat and require regular monitoring by government bodies. The Slovinky sludge bed is one of these areas. The aim of the work was therefore to investigate the selected physico-chemical properties of sludge flotation waste using spectroscopic methods (XPS, XRF, and AAS). Our findings showed that the concentrations of Cu, Zn, and Ni exceeded the limits set by the relevant legislation by several fold even two decades after the end of mining and processing activities. Although the sludge bed material is alkaline, our results showed that the sludge bed material could be a potential source of selected heavy metals. The obtained data could help in the protection and restoration of areas affected by the mining and processing of sulfide ore.

In the current post-COVID-19 era, online marketing is a supporting tool in marketing. The potential visitors to tourism destinations, such as geoparks, are increasingly guided and oriented by the rules of online marketing as the online space represents the main source of information. Geoparks should take this as a key fact. The research concentrates on the issue of geopark marketing from the view of the available information that geoparks present in the online space. The fundamental is to point out the information that is available on geopark websites. The method used in the research is based on an evaluation matrix that served as a basis for searching for information on websites. Based on the results of the analysis, geoparks in the EGN network present information of a general nature to a sufficient extent on their websites; they lack a better offer of product packages, online sales and orientation to new social networks that are used by the young generation. The clear answer is the professionalization of marketing, which would undoubtedly represent an effective step in the management of geoparks as well as the promotion of the country that the geopark represents.

The presented article deals with the use and evaluation of individual risks of work in the environment of Slovak mining company. The mining company is also a manufacturing company. The company mines the raw material and the final product (clinker). The main goal of the article is to monitor the incidence of accidents over the last 10 years, to analyse the group of risks that have a significant impact on accidents in mining companies and to evaluate them. The Risk Matrix, shows the relationship between estimated consequences and probability of risks formation. The next step is to use the workplace Risk Assessment Method to define acceptable risks and minimize the impact on workers. Another method we used is the Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) model. The output of the FTA model is the creation of a faulty tree, which resulted in the individual traumatized accidents that resulted in the definition of the resulting risk - namely a load injury.

The interaction between soil quality and the potential of Paulownia cultivation in terms of revitalization of a specific agricultural brownfield located in the East Slovak region of the Slovak Republic is studied. At the same time, the qualitative indicators of soil and phytomass, including planted Paulownia seedlings, to further possible revitalization of agricultural brownfields in terms of the obtained soil quality data is presented. Based on the obtained qualitative data on the soil, originally occurring phytomass, summary findings and recommendations for revitalizing a particular agricultural brownfield in Paulownia are presented, as fast-growing trees are supporting not only the revitalization of a specific agricultural brownfield but also the climate change mitigation. At the same time, selected indicators of Paulownia’s growth are used to potentially revitalize the agricultural brownfield with the aim of its practical use.

The study deals with the analysis of data from a selected tourism facility and the implementation of a solar system and a rainwater system, which are an alternative to commonly used energy sources. The objective is to evaluate the potential savings from the use of the solar system for water heating and the rainwater system for purposes other than potable use with respect to local conditions of sunlight and rainwater variability. The facility holds 257 beds allocated in 124 rooms on 5 floors. The result of the contribution is an economic evaluation of the efficiency of investments in the proposed systems and the resulting recommendations in the field of energy flows in the selected facility. Appropriate formulas including the consumption of hot water, the amount of energy needed to heat water, the cost of the consumed energy necessary for heating and the average annual rainfall in the location, water consumption for clearly identified purposes of alternation with rainwater, the initial investment costs and operating costs of the solar and rainwater systems, were used for an economic evaluation of the investment into the solar and rainwater systems. Based on the economic evaluation, the economic efficiency of the proposed systems and the return on investment was calculated. The payback periods for the solar system used for hot water heating and the rainwater system used for non-potable purposes, accepting the local conditions, are 7 and 15 years, respectively.

This study aims to identify significant differences between the countries of the European Union, follow the course of achievement of the convergence objectives, assess developments against specific common characteristics of the countries, and propose possible measures that could improve the state of health in the EU as a whole by implementing standard cohesion policies. To compare efficiency and productivity among the states of the European Union, we used data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist productivity index (MPI). On the basis of our findings, even countries that joined the EU later achieve high technical efficiency values. However, it should be noted that it is in these countries that technical efficiency values tend to decline. The values of the Malmquist productivity index broadly indicate stagnation in western countries and productivity decline in central and eastern European countries. This decline is mainly due to a negative shift in the technological frontier in these countries.