Credibility assessment of municipal climate change adaptation plans using the ex-ante method: A case study of Poland

Abstract

Adaptation to climate change is becoming a commonly understood necessity, therefore more and more cities are beginning to develop adaptation plans. The effects of planned actions remain an unknown for a long time, thus the quality and credibility of developed plans are of special importance. The goal of this work is to determine the credibility of 44 municipal adaptation plans (MAP) developed in 2015–2019 by the largest Polish cities as part of a governmental program. Further objectives include indicating the weak and strong points of adaptation planning, attempting to explain the causes of different assessment results of adaptation plans for particular cities, and evaluating the usability of the Adaptation Policy Credibility (APC) framework in Polish conditions. It was found that institutional support for adaptation planning had a highly positive effect. All the cities which joined the project developed highly credible plans, but the quality of these plans varied. The weak points of planning in Polish cities include its regulatory nature and the related legislation, past performance, funding, consistency, equity and justice, and public opinion. On the other hand, the strong points of planning in Polish cities include network membership, adaptation options, and taking uncertainty into consideration. Important aspects also include directing future research towards the development of a method for assessing the implementation of planned actions.