Cartographic symbols on crisis maps serve as means of depicting information about the position, properties, and/or numerical values of objects, phenomena or actions specific to crisis mapping. Many crisis cartographic visualisations require simple, clear, categorised and visually organised symbols that can be easily read and understood by a wide range of crisis map users. Cartographic symbol sets for crisis mapping depend on effective graphic design, good availability (sharing and promotion, dissemination and promulgation) and standardisation (ensuring the general and repeatable use of map symbols). In this research, our aim was to examine the extent of these challenges in current cartographic symbology for crisis mapping. Through a comparative study of prominent symbol sets, we analysed efforts invested so far and proposed future directions. The results of this study may be of assistance in understanding less unified or coherent symbologies currently in use, or in revising or amplifying existing sets for future publication.

The Adriatic microplate has always attracted scientific attention, and various studies on the geodynamics of this area have been performed over the years. With the development of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technology in the last 30 years, most significant research in this field has used it as the primary source of data on geodynamic movements. However, apart from a few global positioning system (GPS) campaigns conducted in the 1990s, the measurements had a low spatiotemporal density. Therefore, the eastern side of the Adria region or the territory of the Republic of Croatia was usually omitted from the results presented in the various published papers. A study of this literature concluded that the territory of Croatia represents a kind of scientific gap and that denser measurement data from GPS/GNSS stations could be used to supplement the geodynamic picture of the area in question. Thus, GPS/GNSS measurements from 83 stations (geodynamic, reference, and POS’ GPS/GNSS) all over Croatia and neighboring countries for a period of almost 20 years (1994–2013) were collected and processed with Bernese software to obtain a unique database of relative velocities. From the geological perspective, the most important and latest insights on the recent geological structural setting, tectonic movements, most active faults, and relationships and movements of structures were taken into account. It was important to compare the geodetic and geological data, observe the present tectonic dynamics of the geological structural setting, and determine the causes of the obtained directions of movement. The research presented in this paper, based on a combination of geodetic and geological data, was conducted to broaden the current knowledge of the present tectonic dynamics of the geological structural setting of the eastern part of the Adriatic region.

Over the years, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have been established in the geosciences as a tool that determines the positions of discrete points (stations) on the Earth’s surface, on global to local spatial scales in a very simple and economical manner. Coordinates obtained by space geodetic measurements ought to be processed, adjusted, and propagated in a given reference frame. As points on the Earth’s surface do not have a fixed position, but rather, are moving with associated velocities, it is inevitable to include those velocities in the coordinate transformation procedure. Station velocities can be obtained from kinematic models of tectonic plate motions. The development and realization of an all-in-one standalone desktop application is presented in this paper. The application unifies coordinate transformation between different realizations (reference frames) of the International Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS) and European Terrestrial Reference System 1989 (ETRS89) following European Reference Frame Technical Note (EUREF TN) recommendations with temporal shifts of discrete points on the Earth’s surface caused by plate tectonics by integrating no-net rotation (NNR) kinematic models of the Eurasian tectonic plate.

Recent development of lightweight and small size multi-frequency GNSS receivers allows determination of the precise position of the moving platform and spatial data acquisition without the need for setting up and measuring of ground control points. The main advantage of this approach is a higher operational capacity with reduced time and cost of field measurement. This relates to fieldwork in inaccessible areas with demanding terrain configuration. In this paper development and use of a UAS with direct georeferencing of camera sensor for spatial data acquisition is described, and the possibility of 3D scene reconstruction based on the precise position of the camera with predetermined interior parameters is examined. Modern computer vision-based SfM photogrammetry algorithms are used for determining attitude parameters and reconstruction of the scene. For that purpose, several tests on two different test fields were performed using various system parameters for collecting and analysis of several spatial data sets. The presented results demonstrate a satisfactory accuracy (3.1 cm planar and 6.4 cm spatial) of the system for various applications in geodesy.

This paper describes the long-standing interdisciplinary geodynamic research for the wider Zagreb area, the most seismically active area of the continental part of the Republic of Croatia, extending over an area of around 800 km². As a result of the research, which is based on geodetic and geological field measurements, a unique interdisciplinary movement model of the surface layers of the Earth’s crust for the project area is created. The analysis of survey data has determined the continuous tectonic activity of the wider Zagreb area. In the past 18 years, a total of 10 GPS measurement campaigns have been conducted. For each campaign, the velocities of geodynamic network points were calculated, and the cumulative velocity rate was determined from all measurement campaigns for the entire period of observations using GAMIT/GLOBK software. Displacements at individual measuring points of the network, throughout research, vary widely and depend on its location within the local geologic structural framework and regional tectonic movements. These displacements in detail represent a measurable insight into the tectonic activity of the area of research. Therefore, in this paper, special attention is given to the analysis and explanation of these variations in the displacements of the individual geodynamic points, even indicating the questionable quality of location selection for some points. In this way, we seek to explain the causes and mechanisms of such displacements. The results presented in this paper represent the preseismic area condition and further can be used in coseismic 2020 earthquake displacement analysis.