Primary objectives of our work were to spatially delineate post industrial areas of the EU-27 and indicate key environmental, social and economic sensitivity issues for these regions. The density of industrial sites within NUTS-x regions for EU-27 countries was assessed by using CORINE 2000 land cover layer. A development of postindustrial society in Europe represents a strong geographic diversity. There are distinct historical and current differences between regions which form major groups, comprising similar internal characteristics and definable trends in environmental and socioeconomic sense. Regions grouped into postindustrial clusters are fundamentally different from the European average, and are facing specific problems related to global market and political changes. Eastern postindustrial regions can be characterized as socially and economically weak, exhibiting high unemployment rate, low GDP, negative population growth and a strong environmental pressure, represented by a high density of dump sites. Most of the western EU postindustrial areas have been successfully recovered and moved into new economy as shown by most of the indicators. In urban postindustrial zones, however, emission sources of pollutants seem to continually be a major problem--not necessarily in terms of exceeding thresholds, but through a remarkable difference in the amount of pollutants produced relative to other regions.
The purpose of this study is to characterize municipalities with a high share of LFAs (specific type zone I) as well as to assess the functioning of farms located in such municipalities against the background of analogous farms in non-LFA municipalities which kept accounts for the Polish FADN continuously in 2016-2018. The first part of the study describes the method of determining and characterizing areas with natural constraints (LFA) of specific type located in zone I in Poland designated by the Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation-NRI (IUNG-PIB) on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MRiRW) and the European Commission (EC). These areas were determined on the basis of the threshold values of the Nature and Tourism Index (WCPT) and the Index for the Valorisation of Agricultural Production Area (WWRPP). They have functioned in our country since 2019 and include 1233,7 thousand ha UAA. The second part of the study presents the functioning of farms located
Increasing the European Union’s (EU) current efforts to protect the natural environment, especially in the context of protecting agricultural soils, is one of its basic challenges. The European Commission (EC) is now ready and willing to strongly strengthen protection of the natural environment. Activities are primarily supported by the European Green Deal (EGD) strategy from 2019 and its thematic strategies, as well as the currently revised Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2023–2027. Further direct support for farms from Areas facing Natural or other Specific constraints (ANCs support), compensating for them at least some of the additional costs and lost income related to the difficulties for agricultural production, will be one of the most important actions of the future CAP in the context of the protection of agricultural soils. It should be added that, in recent years, all EU Member States, including Poland (in 2019), have carried out a mandatory new delimitation of ANCs according to the same rules established by the EC Joint Research Center (EC JRC) under the CAP 2014–2020. The aim of the study is to characterize the organizational situation of Polish agriculture, to indicate the direction and strength of the changes taking place in it, as well as the main determinants of its further functioning in areas (communes) with a particularly high saturation of current ANCs, as compared to other areas, with and without ANCs. It is also important to present the economic consequences and development opportunities for farms conducting agricultural production in these areas. The results of the study show the condition of Polish agriculture and changes taking place in this sector in areas with different saturation and specificity of ANCs related to challenges for environmental protection included in the EGD strategy and the current and future CAP. The research results will also provide an important basis for policymakers in undertaking effective agricultural support in ANCs and for the scientific community to develop agricultural research that can meet the most pressing challenges faced in the areas. It should be noted that the study emphasizes the significance of the new institutional economics, the postulates of which can provide solid support for the actions taken to better protect ANCs.
The aim of this study is to compare the farmers’ viewpoint on agricultural drought with the results generated by the national Agricultural Drought Monitoring System (ADMS) in 2021. The authors attempted also to indicate effective methods of validating these results, which could serve as an objective tool of appeal made available to farmers as a part of an administrative procedure or directly included in the drought monitoring system, which, apart from soil and meteorological conditions, would take into account the actual condition of crops in the field. An analysis comparing farmers’ assessments with the ADMS results was presented for all (27,580 parcels) claims for compensation for losses in winter wheat crops submitted in the country. A detailed assessment of the impact of drought on yields was carried out for two pilot regions in the area most affected by agricultural drought in Poland (West Pomeranian Voivodeship, NUTS-2 PL42 region). The paper demonstrates a subjective assessment of incurred losses, performed by the farmers themselves. The difference between the “potential drought”—resulting from the meteorological and soil conditions—and the actual losses, which are also influenced by agro-technical factors, was indicated. The grounds for further development of the agricultural drought monitoring system were the need to establish a method of estimating the impact of drought on crops, which will be based on unambiguous criteria and using high-resolution (temporal and spatial) remote sensing data.
Cross-cutting environmental, social and economic changes may have harsh impacts on sensitive regions. To address sustainability issues by governmental policy measures properly, the geographical delineation of sensitive 472 Oliver Dilly et al.regions is essential. With reference to the European impact assessment guidelines from 2005, sensitive regions were identified by using environmental, social and economic data and by applying cluster analysis, United Nation Environmental Policy priorities and expert knowledge. On a regionalised 'Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics' (NUTS) level and for pre-defined sensitive region types (post-industrial zones, mountains, coasts and islands) 31 % of the European area was identified as sensitive. However, the delineation mainly referred to social and economic issues since the regional data bases on environmental indicators are limited and do not allow the separation of medium-term vital classes of sensitive regions. Overall, the sensitive regions showed indicator values differing from the EU-25 average.
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