Heritage

The "he­ri­tage" sec­tor is a de­part­ment of SISKA de­di­ca­ted to the do­cu­men­ta­tion and pro­tec­tion of kars­tic he­ri­tage. Pro­jects in this area draw on the know­ledge and skills of SISKA staff in site re­me­dia­tion, bios­pe­leo­lo­gy and geo­he­ri­tage.

There are ma­ny unau­tho­ri­sed dumps in kars­tic ter­rain (chasms, caves and do­lines). This waste is in di­rect contact with the ground­wa­ter, which can have conse­quences for the qua­li­ty of drin­king water.The pre­sence of waste may have a si­gni­fi­cant im­pact on the state of conser­va­tion of these par­ti­cu­lar geo­lo­gi­cal sites.

Nu­me­rous ana­lyses have shown that these old dis­po­sal sites are dan­ge­rous, with high le­vels of hea­vy me­tals. SISKA or­ga­nizes clean-up cam­pai­gns in se­ve­ral can­tons (VD, NE, VS, JU, BE). Over the past 20 years, more than 200 sites have al­rea­dy been re­me­dia­ted.

The bios­pe­leo­lo­gy plat­form is a link bet­ween ca­vers in­ter­es­ted in un­der­ground fau­na and spe­cia­lists in dif­ferent groups of un­der­ground or­ga­nisms. It en­ables dis­co­ve­ries that pro­vide im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion on ha­bi­tats and bio­geo­gra­phy to be pas­sed on to in­ter­es­ted re­sear­chers. By ac­ting as a re­lay, the plat­form helps to prevent the loss of in­for­ma­tion about the un­der­ground en­vi­ron­ment. It is al­so a link to the spe­cia­list ser­vices in the can­tons and to those res­pon­sible for geo­tope pro­tec­tion.

The platform's ac­ti­vi­ties are sup­por­ted by the Scien­ti­fic Spe­leo­lo­gy Com­mis­sion of the Swiss Aca­de­my of Na­tu­ral Sciences (sc­nat) and are part of the na­tio­nal pro­gramme for the conser­va­tion of spe­leo­lo­gi­cal and karst he­ri­tage sup­por­ted by the FOEN.

SISKA is res­pon­sible for car­rying out in­ven­to­ries of kars­tic sites (sin­kholes, do­lines, la­pies), geo-he­ri­tage as­sess­ments and site ma­na­ge­ment pro­po­sals (re­me­dia­tion, pro­tec­tion, en­han­ce­ment).

For re­la­ti­ve­ly com­plex or ma­jor pro­jects in kars­tic en­vi­ron­ments, we can use our ex­pe­rience to as­sess their fea­si­bi­li­ty and re­duce their po­ten­tial im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment. In par­ti­cu­lar, we deal with im­pacts on ground­wa­ter, sub­ter­ra­nean fau­na, the sub­ter­ra­nean cli­mate and the kars­tic land­scape.