## 5 Conclusions  
[PERSON]'s model based on [PERSON]'s geometric integral theory of exploitation influences is the most popular model used in Central-Eastern Europe, especially by the Jastrzebie Coal Company, from the south of Poland, for forecasting the values of continuous deformation indicators of a mining area (e.g., subsidence, inclinations, and curvatures) caused by underground mining exploitation of hard coal deposits. Generally, the effectiveness of this model is rather high when only discontinuous deformations are revealed on a land surface [50; 52].  
An important problem arises when, in addition to continuous deformations, discontinuous linear deformations (i.e., ground steps) unexpectedly appear on the land surface, as shown in this article, for example, by inclinations in a mining area. The program does not contain a module that allows for taking into account the changes in the values of the indicators of the continuous deformations of a land surface, which were caused by discontinuous deformations. For this reason, the efficiency of the model decreased significantly, because, for approximately 45.5% of the inclination values observed in situ, the model underestimated their values by an average of \(-\)53.5% (Table 9). For the remaining part of the examined sample (54.5%), their values were overestimated on average by as much as 461.9% (Table 9). The largest anomalies (underestimations and overestimations) were observed in the case of inclination values coming from the points located near the ground steps. As the analyzed example shows, the location of the longitudinal axis of the discontinuous linear deformation concerning the measurement sections is also significant (Figure 5). In the case in which the axis ran transversely to the measurement sections (the z07g-z08g section and the z10d-z11d section), the inclination values observed in these sections increased. In the situation in which the axis of the ground steps ran along the measurement sections (the z35d-z36d section and the z56d-z57d section), the inclination values of the land surface decreased.  
As observed, discontinuous linear deformations may be problematic not only due to the mining damage to the ground surface [60] and the buildings [56; 61] but also during forecasting of the impacts of mining exploitation using [PERSON]'s model. A solution to this problem could be the introduction of a safety factor for the forecasted values calculated by this model if there is a risk of the occurrence of discontinuous linear deformations. The values of this coefficient may depend on the heights of the ground steps, which requires further research. The basis for this statement is that the values of the inclinations observed in the sections located near the ground steps change depending on their height, as presented in Section 4.  
Despite these shortcomings, [PERSON]'s model will still be widely used in forecasting continuous deformations of land surfaces, because it well reflects the categories of mining areas (in the analyzed case, the 1 st model mining area category--Table 8 corresponds to the 1 st observed mining area category--Table 6) important from the point of view of the design of construction structures in mining areas and building's reinforcements against the adverse effects of underground mining.  
**Funding:** This research was funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education by Statutory Research of Faculty of Mining, Safety Engineering and Industrial Automation, Silesian University of Technology.  
**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.  
**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.  
**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available upon request from the author.  
**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflicts of interest.