Kick-off meeting of Partners implementing the SIRIMA project

On August 29-30, 2024, the Central Mining Institute – National Research Institute (GIG-PIB) held the 1st partners’ meeting, which officially launched the SIRIMA project: Sinkhole Hazard and Risk Management in Post-Mining Areas, co-financed by the Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) of the European Union. Its coordinator is GIG-PIB and the partners are: the Institute of Strata Mechanics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IMG-PAN), French research institutions – INERIS, BRGM, GEODERIS and the University of Lorraine, the German consulting and research group DMT together with the technical university THGA and the Spanish consulting and research company Systra Subterra.

The aim of the project is to expand knowledge about the processes occurring in the rock mass after the liquidation of hard coal mines and to develop new methods for early recognition and assessment of sinkhole hazard in their areas.

The meeting participants visited the Coal Mining Museum in Zabrze, on a section of the tourist route in the historic Dziedziczna Adit. This adit runs at a shallow depth under the buildings of the central part of the city. One of the reasons for its revitalization was to protect against the possibility of local ceiling collapses, which could manifest themselves in sinkholes of the ground surface and damage to the building infrastructure.