Mountain grazing and ore processing had a significant impact on the Alpine environment in the last 5000 years, but few studies have so far focused on environmental changes of the south eastern Alps. This study investigates the vegetation history and sedimentary processes in the catchment of Lake Bohinj (Julian Alps, Slovenia), where a 12-m-long core was collected in the central part of the lake. Sediment in the early Holocene section of the core was partially reworked due to a major seismic event dated to 6711–6523 yr cal BP (Rapuc et al. 2018), therefore a detailed palaeoenvironmental reconstruction was performed only for the top 4.4 m of the core. Here the results of mineralogical, sedimentological, geochemical, stable isotope (?13C and ?15N), and pollen analysis are presented in order to better understand the impact of people (agriculture, grazing, mining) on the environment, and climate-human interactions over the last 6600 years. The results of palynological research suggest that at ca. 6000 yr cal BP Lake Bohinj was surrounded by mixed forest composed of Picea, Abies, deciduous Quercus, with Fagus becoming dominant after ca. 3300 yr cal BP. In the Bronze and especially the Iron Age (3500–2500 yr cal BP), when the region was, according to archaeological data, densely populated, clearing of forests due to agriculture, livestock production and metallurgical activities was detected through Cerealia type pollen, Plantago lanceolata, and the decline of Abies. These activities probably triggered soil erosion recorded as increased sedimentation rates. In the subsequent centuries human impact on the environment continued (increased), but it seems that the watershed was not destabilised again. Several periods of high terrigenous input were recorded at 6100–6000, 5700–5550, 5000–4600, 3900, 3700–3550, 2300–2200 yr cal BP and could be associated with a mobilisation of river inflow from the eastern flysch bearing catchment, due to river migration during periods of wetter climate. These flood patterns match with periods of enhanced flood activity in the wider Alpine region.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1521758
We used geophysical and sedimentological data from the Gulf of Trieste to create a bathymetric model and a model of the depth of the base of the Holocene marine sediment. These two surface models were used to calculate the thickness of marine Holocene sediment. In the central part of the Gulf the Holocene marine sediment is very thin or even absent. Thicker accumulations occur close to the shoreline, in proximity of fluvial sedimentary sources, in the area of the Trezza Grande paleodelta, above topographic depressions in the Late Pleistocene base, and in the southeastern part of the gulf where the thickness averages to approximately 5 meters.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1405278
A risk management methodology is presented for the adaptation of drinking water supply to changing climate and land-use activities, considering socio-economic aspects. Several management options were selected for the case of the public water supply of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The major management actions for improving drinking water safety are (1) land-use limitations within the drinking water protection areas and (2) drinking water treatment. Trends in groundwater level are decreasing; therefore, artificial recharge and setting up a new independent well field were also considered. The management actions were evaluated according to several criteria, such as water supply risk reduction for the various users (drinking, agricultural, and industrial) and realization of the actions (cost, flexibility, and leg time). Ranking of management actions was based on a Multiple Criterion Decision Making (MCDM) technique and it has shown that all management actions are good as they are clustering close to the ideal value. For a particular well field, farming limitations in the drinking water protection areas are the best and water treatment is the worst management action, which is due to high costs, low flexibility, and longer lag time.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1538142
Our study is based on the automatic classification of various litho-geomorphological units including slope deposits, alluvial deposits, steep carbonate cliffs, flysch, two carbonate plateaus, and Quaternary deposits, based on supervised Maximum Likelihood Classification. Several polygons were used for training in the broader valley area, and later, the method was applied to automatically classify the complete area into the abovementioned six units. For input layers, we used data for elevation, slope, terrain ruggedness index (TRI), and curvature. Results show that generally, the method is suitable for classification of the litho-geomorphological units including slope deposits. However, comparison with a more detailed map, comprising mapped various mass movements indicated that the method correctly predicts high Trnovo plateau carbonates, steep carbonate slopes, translational carbonate blocks, and fossil rock avalanche deposits, and alluvial deposits, but is not able to clearly distinguish between flysch and more recent slope deposits of gravel and breccia due to their similar elevation, TRI, and slope values. The Slano blato mudflow and Stogovce landslide are not recognized. Therefore, this automatic classification can be carefully used to create a guidance map of general occurrences of litho-geomorphological units including slope deposits before going to the field, with the aim of delineation of slope deposits so they can be further studied in detail later in the field. However, such a map cannot be used as a direct substitute map for the geological and geomorphological map obtained in the field due to impossibility in distinguishing among the units with the same properties (elevation, slope, and TRI values).
COBISS.SI-ID: 1402718
In this research, the Sečovlje Salina (northern Adriatic, Slovenia) sediments were geochemically investigated in order to decode the mobility of metal(oid)s in the hypersaline environment and to assess the role of metal mobility on potential health impact. The results demonstrated that the concentrations of As, Co, Cu, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sb, Sn and Zn were comparable to those detected in various background areas, as well as in the Sečovlje salt marsh core sample. Since the hypersaline sediment (e.g. healing mud) is used as a healing factor (it can be applied directly on human skin) it is significant that the metal(oid) contents are leached in very low concentrations and are treated as nontoxic for humans according to international norms for cosmetic products.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1409630