Challenges of Spatial Planning in Poland in the Context of Global Climate Change—Selected Issues

Abstract

Contemporary spatial planning struggles with many difficulties resulting from, inter alia, ongoing climate change. Ongoing environmental transformations pose many challenges for spatial policy across the entire globe. The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of climate change on urban spaces in Poland and to answer the question of whether planning practice promotes adaptation to climate change and, if so, to what extent. This paper uses a descriptive and comparative research methodology to interpret planning provisions used in selected local spatial development plans in terms of the arrangements that aim to prevent the negative consequences of climate change. The subject of the analysis is the content of general and detailed plans defined in the texts of the examined resolutions of applicable local plans in the Lower Silesia and Greater Poland voivodeships. This study assessed the validity of applying specific planning provisions. This interpretation was determined on the basis of a review of the current provisions in the Polish law, literature on the subject, as well as the author’s own professional experience in the field of spatial planning. The quantitative and qualitative research results are summarized in a table and also examined and described in detail. Examples of planning records that were used in the analysis of local plans are cited and compared. Finally, the adaptation challenges posed to spatial planning in Poland at the local level (communal) based on the obtained quantitative data on the issues were studied.