Maps of Protection of Mineral Deposits
In compliance with § 13 of the Act No. 62/1988 Coll. on geological works, as amended (further referred to as the "Geological Code"), and under § 15 of the Act No. 44/1988 Coll., on the protection and utilization of mineral resources, as amended (further referred to as the "Mining Act"), the Czech Geological Survey - Geofond prepares maps of protected mineral deposits at 1:50,000 scale. These maps show the identified reserved mineral deposits protected under § 16-19 of the Mining Act, and inferred deposits within areas of specific geological composition as defined by § 13 of the Geological Code.
Bodies such as community authorities, regional offices and central state-administrative bodies concerned with planning land-use and with construction codes, as well as providers of land-use planning documents and construction firms are obliged to take these records of identified and inferred mineral deposits into account. They are further obliged to propose strategies for land use that will be most beneficial from the viewpoint of protection and utilization of mineral resources and other legally protected general interests (§ 15 of the Mining Act).
In the case of reserved mineral deposits, bodies concerned with planning land-use must respect §§ 18 and 19 of the Mining Act when issuing decisions on land-use.
In the case of inferred mineral resources, bodies concerned with planning land-use may issue decisions on land-use only in compliance with § 13, § 13, paragraph 3 of the Geological Code. Prior consent by the Ministry of the Environment need not be requested before issuing land-use decisions for the following categories of constructions:
construction within an established community or in areas of continuous community development, carried out under § 55, paragraph 2 of the Act No. 50/1976 Coll. on land-use planning and the construction code, as amended and supplemented (further referred to as the Building Code);
- construction of temporary buildings, the expected lifetime of which does not exceed 20 years.
The maps of protected mineral deposits are prepared in the CGS - Geofond as thematic outputs of the mineral deposits database. The maps are issued in sets covering the territory of the individual regions and are regularly updated at intervals of ca. 3 years. The maps show all reserved mineral deposits, inferred mineral resources, currently valid mining leases, areas of protected mineral deposits and areas protected from specific interventions in the Earth crust. Based on the decision of the Commission for Evaluation and Re-evaluation of Inferred Mineral Deposits and Groundwaters of the Ministry of the Environment, only such registered inferred resources that comply with § 13, paragraph 3 of the Geological Code are included in the maps of protected mineral deposits. These registered inferred resources are marked by the code P9 for reserved minerals and with code R9 for non-reserved minerals.
The maps of protected mineral deposits do not show non-reserved mineral deposits, or other inferred resources (within the categories of registered or described resources) nor do they show areas of exploration with negative results and non-prospective areas and occurrences.
All the objects described above are recorded in the database of mineral deposits of the CGS - Geofond, and essential data on these objects are freely available - see Application - SURIS. Such data can be extracted in the form of a thematic output to meet specific needs.
Supplementary information on these maps includes boundaries of national parks (NP) and protected landscape areas (PLA). (Decisions on investment construction activities lies within the competence of the respective Administrations of NP and PLA). The set of maps is accompanied by an explanatory text, which contains comments and summary tables for the individual map sheets.
The format of the map and text outputs for land-use planning bodies has been agreed with the Ministry of the Environment. In addition to this standard output, the CGS - Geofond provides - upon request - thematic outputs with additional data: e.g., the name of the exploration company, title or number of the final report kept in the archives of the CGS - Geofond, regional-geological position of the deposit, its genetic type, the character of the minerals extracted and so on.