Based on chemical analyses, the quality of ground waters for drinking, agricultural and industrial purposes was deter-mined in Rafsanjan Plain-Iran. Samples for analyses were taken from 22 wells in 2012. Because of high water hardness and total dissolved solids content, water was found to be unsuitable for drinking purposes. Water quality for agriculture was determined with the use of the Wilcox method. Among the analysed water, 10.33% were attributed to C3-S1 class (high electrolytic conductivity and low sodium adsorption ratio), 59.5% to class C4-S1 (very high EC and low SAR) and 30.17% to class C4-S2 (very high EC and medium SAR). 89.67% of studied wells were unsuitable for agriculture. Because of corro-sive water properties all but two wells on Rafsanjan Plain were undesirable for use in the industry. The results of qualitative analyses were presented in GIS and in databases to support making decision and management of groundwater on Rafsanjan Plain.
In recent years, the outsourcing of a variety of different activities has been more commonly observed in the coal mining industry. This is connected with employing workers by external companies. These practices are not necessarily perceived as good ones by mines’ employees because they may influence their remuneration directly or indirectly. Firstly, as external employees treat work in mining company as a source of a quick income. Therefore, external companies often calculate their employees compensation not based on working time (i.e. hours) but on the basis of a specific, accomplished task. Such employment is called piecework, whereas the workers employed in this kind of system are called output workers/piece workers. Therefore, to receive higher wages in these companies, employees carry out their tasks faster and more efficiently. This, in turn, can affect the standards of workers employed by the mining company. In addition, outsourced workers are often retired miners, so the costs incurred by employers are significantly lower. In addition, in order to not to lose the retirement benefit, they work for a much lower rate. On the other hand, outsourced work can be done in a hurry (on a piece rate), which is not conducive to compliance with safety regulations, therefore mine employees may feel unsafe. This article aims to present how mine employees assess outsourcing underground works. In order to achieve this aim, a survey was carried out among employees of one of the coal mine companies in Silesia. Participants of the survey were randomly chosen among underground miners employed at one mine company. The survey was anonymous which obviously might have influenced respondents’ honesty in answering. The survey was carried out in several mines of the chosen company. In some of them the survey was carried out online and in the remaining ones it was filled out on paper. Analyzing the survey results allowed for a better understanding of the reasons of the disapproval of outsourcing underground works. This, in turn, may be used for better human resources management including, in particular, planning an incentive based pay system.
The paper presents the problem of the growing water deficit and the possibility of sustainable development of water resources in rural areas of Central and Eastern Europe (using the example of Poland). It is estimated that the amount of resources in this region is reduced by about 70% compared to the average for Europe. In drought periods it comes to limitation of economic activity, including agriculture. Particular attention was paid to the necessity to extend landscape, underground, and snow retention, as an alternative to dams, which are currently the most popular in lower-order catchments. It has been shown that the construction of small agricultural reservoirs is not always preceded by adequate consultations and pre-design studies, which may result in financial losses and legal problems. Simultaneous use of many alternative forms of retention should be more effective than the implementation of reservoirs. In addition, increasing the hydraulic roughness of the catchments slows down the outflow of products of erosion and contributes to the protection of surface retention structures (maintaining natural and economic usefulness of reservoirs).