Significance of geological cartography in priority problems of engineering geology

T he top-priority trends of research in the field of geological engineering presented in the article have been developed in reference to the relevant policy for the years 2004-2010 accepted by the Polish Ministry of the Environment and the Geological Engineering Documen- tary Commission sessions' discussions. The analysis of the above mentioned materials shows that main and, at the same time urgent tasks are to gather geological engineering data in the integrated, geospatial databases and to execute cartographic studies necessary for the needs of spatial management and forecasting the environmental changes caused by investment pro- cesses. Data concerning evaluation of nationwide hazards of natural and anthropogenic pro- cesses should be included in such databases. Concurrently, as a part of adapting Polish legal standards to those of the European Union, it is necessary to prepare regional correlational dependences for the geological engineering classi- fication of main types of lithogenetic soil and rocks covering regional geological variability of Poland in the subgrade and bedrock evaluation. It has also been highlighted in the article that of crucial importance is fast drawing up the rules and methods of documenting geologi- cal engineering conditions for building waste disposal sites, marine hydrotechnical structures, mines and other structures shutdown, as well as educating people involved, promoting the role of geological engineering studies in the proper course of investment processes and the necessity of undertaking appropriate legislative actions in order to obtain a systemic placement of such studies in the invest- ment processes.