Very warm and tropical nights in voivodeship cities in Poland in the period 1971–2020

The article presents an attempt to analyse population changes and to measure the strength of the impact of factors causing these changes in former voivodeship (province) cities in Poland. In view of the ongoing processes of suburbanisation, the discussion also concerns the areas surrounding the city, i.e. those creating urban systems together with the city. These zones were delineated, calling them demographic influence zones, because only demographic factors were involved in defining them. The research was conducted in the period between1999–2015, and took into account the administrative reform of the country that degraded 31 cities from voivodeship (NUTS-2) capitals to poviat (LAU-1) cities. The main aim of the study was to find an answer to the question: do the directions and the strength of population changes confirm a hypothesis of the destructive impact of the loss of administrative function on settlement units. The results of the study only partially confirmed this hypothesis. Although a decrease in the population is overwhelmingly predominant in the city core, in the case of the demographic influence zone, it has already increased. Counting both parts together, it was found that in half of the cases there was a decline and in the other half a growth of the population.

Availability of rail transport is limited, due to lack of infrastructure or unprofitable. Therefore the linkage between rail and bus network are the basis of an efficient public transport system. From a passenger’s perspective, the most important role plays spatial integration (in the context of transfer). The aim of the article is to evaluate the integration of the main railway and bus stations. The study is based on the voivodship cities, which are the most important transport nodes in this country. Author focus on the location of stations in the city space, their distance, but also the spatial barriers that may hinder a possible transfer.

The impact of transport on the quality of the environment in cities of Poland – a statistical analysis

The statistical analysis of road traffic in cities of Poland

This article presents the results of an analysis of the accessibility of websites of 16 voivodeship cities in Poland. The study aimed to evaluate the extent to which the websites representing voivodeship capitals comply with WCAG 2.1 standards and to compare the results. The findings indicate discrepancies in meeting the requirements, emphasizing the need to implement more effective practices to improve website accessibility.

Sub-regional centers in Poland The studies described in this volume were aimed identify sub-regional centers in Poland and to evaluate their socio-economic potential. In the introduction, reference was made to the polycentric nature of the settlement network and its importance. It was emphasized that Poland is characterized by a highly polycentric settlement network, but centralization is visible, which is in contradiction with the assumptions of the European Union policy. The more and more efficiently functioning polycentric systems are indicated as an important element of balancing development. The second chapter analyzes the structure of cities, planning documents at various levels (European, national and regional), and several scientific studies containing various types of classifications and typologies of cities in Poland. On this basis, cities were selected for further research. 120 cities were selected as sub-regional centers - both main, supplementary, and potential. The decisive factor in selecting a given city was its indication as a supra-poviat center in at least one planning document (109 cities). Then the list was completed on the basis of the analysis of selected scientific studies. This collection was the subject of research in the following chapters. Chapter three describes the characteristics and evaluation of the socio-economic development of 120 previously selected cities. The analysis takes into account six groups of factors: demographic potential – population number and its changes; location in relation to other larger urban centers – the so-called peripherality; the role of a given center as a transport node – including internal (urban) and external transport; institutional base in the field of public entities of supra-poviat importance; selected economic conditions, i.e. the level of entrepreneurship development and business environment institutions; development of civil society – non-governmental organizations and turnout in local elections. In recent years, the vast majority of the examined cities recorded a decrease in inhabitants, which in the case of Wałbrzych in the years 2000–2019 exceeded 15%. Only in the 10 analyzed cities did the number of inhabitants increased in the last decade – the most, more than 10%, in Ełk and Wejherowo. Częstochowa was considered the best-developed transport node in the group of cities, while Chełmno and Ustka were the worst. Among the examined cities, former voivodship cities were characterized by a clearly higher level of socio-economic development, and especially with a well-developed institutional base. Częstochowa, Tarnów, Koszalin, Legnica, Suwałki and Bielsko- Biała were ranked the highest. Among the analyzed cities that did not perform voivodship functions in the past, Sanok, Wałcz and Zakopane – due to the development of civil society, and Kędzierzyn-Koźle, Grudziądz, and Starachowice – due to economic development, were the ones that was characterized by the highest above the average level of development. Chapter four contains an analysis of the connections and the range of influence of selected cities. Functional urban areas according to the ESPON 1.4.3 project, functional urban areas according to the delimitation in the National Spatial Development Concept until 2030, and Ministry of Regional Development delimitation, ITI (Integrated Territorial Investments) associations, and associations of functional areas were taken into account. Potential polycentric subregions as well as agglomerations and urban conurbations created by the studied cities were indicated. Reference was made to the concept of urban regions based on commuting distances and the transport accessibility to potential subregional centers was analyzed. The travel time by car from communal centers and the connection of public transport between the examined cities were taken into account. A proposal for subregion delimitation and a case study was presented, including previous own research on the range of subregions in Pomerania. The analysis shows that most of the examined cities were part of functional urban areas, created independently or with other cities. Assuming 91 sub-regions (sub-regional and voivodeship centers), almost 60% of communal centers in Poland would be within a 30-minute drive to the nearest sub-regional center. The connections by public transport between the examined cities and voivodship centers were diversified. In the case of 4 teams of the examined cities, connections were provided by public transport. On the other hand, the weakest connections were found in Wieluń, Busko-Zdrój, Bełchatów and Słubice. The presented research fits into the concept of polycentric development of the country – it shows the potential of cities that should provide access to secondary services, including public ones.

Intelligent transport systems (ITS) are undoubtedly an opportunity for the sustainable development of smart cities today. ITS is based on advanced transport technologies that help minimise the emission of harmful substances to the environment. Smart mobility and ITS are related to the use of ICT. The implementation of technologically advanced ITS is associated with several benefits, barriers and difficulties. However, transport, ITS and smart mobility (as a component of a smart city) are indicated as the most desirable option for sustainable urban transport systems. The article aims to identify barriers related to the implementation of ITS in cities from the point of view of people responsible for the organisation of urban transport representing the local government of selected voivodship cities in Poland. The goal formulated in this way allowed to identify the following research question: what are the problems and barriers of implementing ITS in the city from the local government’s perspective? To achieve the paper’s aim, the author based their analysis on a qualitative technique of collecting empirical data. Ten individual in-depth interviews were conducted with representatives of local governments (vice-mayors and members of urban transport organisers) in voivodship cities, which represented six Polish macro-regions. Research results and findings indicate the main categories and subcategories of barriers related to the ITS implementation. The identified barriers are grouped into the following categories: economic, social, organisational, technological and legal. The contribution is twofold: first, in the presentation of the theoretical and practical barriers to ITS in juxtaposition; and second, in identifying the intelligent transportation impact, which affects the provision of being a smarter city. The findings can positively influence as important factors for local governments to focus on intelligent transport.

Disability is an interdisciplinary-medical, social and professional phenomenon. The goal of medical professionals is to treat a person and restore his or her fitness. The group of disabled people in Poland is characterized by a lower level of education than among non-disabled people and high unemployment. The purpose of vocational rehabilitation is to make it easier for a disabled person to obtain and maintain appropriate employment and career advancement. Social rehabilitation is defined as an activity aimed at enabling a disabled person to fully participate in social life. The tasks of the local government addressed to disabled people include conducting occupational therapy workshops (WTZ), occupational activity establishments (ZAZ), community self-help homes (ŚDS) and social welfare homes (DPS). The aim of the study was to analyze the implementation of self-government tasks in the field of social and vocational rehabilitation of disabled people, with particular emphasis on ZAZ in the Lubelskie Voivodeship in 2008-2017. The work uses data collected in 2008-2017 by the Regional Center for Social Policy (ROPS) in Lublin. In addition, in December 2017, they were sent by e-mail to ROPS and Marshal’s Offices in voivodship cities in Poland, inquiries about tasks and ways of implementing these tasks in the field of social and vocational rehabilitation of disabled people in 2008-2017. The available data on expenditure from the State Fund for Rehabilitation of the Disabled (PFRON) was collected. The research material was statistically developed using the IBM SPSS Statistics (v. 25) and Statistica (v. 13) statistical packages. In the years 2008-2017 in the Lubelskie Voivodeship, PLN 75,529,959 was allocated for vocational and social rehabilitation of people with disabilities, the most (PLN 9,158,243) in 2016. In the same year, the largest number of people used the ZAZ. In 2008-2017, the average annual amount of expenditure on social and vocational rehabilitation of disabled people in all Polish provinces was PLN 7 576 718.9. In the discussed period, the highest amounts from PFRON were allocated to the rehabilitation of disabled people in the Śląskie Voivodeship, and the lowest in Lubuskie, while Lubelskie received average amounts. In Poland, in the field of social and vocational rehabilitation and employment of disabled people, solutions similar to those already developed are applied in the countries of Western Europe. The costs of financing vocational rehabilitation, understood as financing the functioning of the ZAZ by voivodship self-governments, are constantly growing. The growing expenses incurred on the activities of the ZAZ do not significantly improve the situation related to vocational rehabilitation and employment of disabled people. Improving the operation of the system of vocational and social rehabilitation of people with disabilities should not only consist in increasing the funds spent under the current inefficient system, but should be preceded by a thorough analysis of the current state and the development of extensive organizational changes.

The transport accessibility is one of the crucial issues of planning the transport development in the spatial dimension. The improvement of the transport accessibility of Polish regions is one of the major aims in socioeconomic development strategies. The flow of funds from European Union made it possible to realize numerous investments in all modes of transport, including the construction of motorways and express roads, as well as the modernization of the railway network. The article examines the impact of the completed road and rail investments on the increase of the transport accessibility of the voivodeship cities in Poland by investigating the shortening of road and rail transit times in mutual transport relations between them.

Purpose: Image is one of the key issues in city marketing and branding. City image studies are essential tools for urban planners, social researchers as well as political decision-makers and local authorities aiming to understand how people perceive the urban space in which they live. The objective of this article is to identify the image of voivodeship cities among their residents based on the respondents’ age categories. Methodology/approach: The article relies on the results of a quantitative study conducted with a sample of 728 respondents residing in selected voivodeship cities in Poland. The research tool employed in the study was a standardised survey questionnaire. Findings: The findings reveal a statistically significant difference in the assessment of the overall city image by residents across various age categories. Practical implications: This article may serve as an inspiration for city managers who, in shaping a positive image of urban centres, can communicate information about selected city attributes tailored to the chosen age category of inhabitants. Originality/value: The research results unequivocally confirm that older city dwellers appear to be more inclined to feel an emotional connection to their place of residence and express positive opinions about it.

Understanding climate change and extreme climate is of great significance for ensuring food security and socio-economic development of the Songhua River Basin. Based on the daily precipitation, maximum temperature and minimum temperature data during 1961-2020 from 69 meteorological stations in and around the Songhua River Basin, we analyzed the temporal and spatial variations of extreme temperature and precipitation in the Songhua River Basin using 27 extreme climate indices recommended by the World Meteorological Organization, and linear trend method, Mann-Kendall trend test and ordinary Kriging interpolation methodology. The results showed that, from 1961 to 2020, except for cold speel duration, the extreme cold index in the study area showed a downward trend, while the extreme warm index, extreme value index and other temperature indices showed an upward trend. The increasing trend of the minimum temperature was greater than that of the maximum temperature. Icing days, cold speel duration and warm speel duration showed an increasing trend from south to north, while the minimum value of maximum temperature and that of minimum temperature showed opposite spatial characteristics. The high value areas of summer days and tropical nights were mainly distributed in the southwestern region, while there was no obvious spatial variations of cool days, warm nights, and warm days. Overall, except for cold speel duration, other extreme cold indices had a rapid decreasing trend in the north and west of the Songhua River Basin. In the warm index, summer days, warm nights, warm days, and warm speel duration had a rapid upward trend in the north and west, and tropical nights had the fastest rise in the southwest. In the extreme value index, the maximum of temperature rose fastest in the northwest, while the minimum rose fastest in the northeast. Except for consecutive dry days, the rest of precipitation indices showed an increasing trend, and the fastest rising areas were mainly in the north-central part of the Nenjiang River Basin, while some areas in the south of the Nenjiang River Basin became dry. Heavy precipitation days, very heavy precipitation days, heaviest precipitation days, consecutive wet days, very wet day precipitation, extremely wet day precipitation, and annual precipitation showed a gradual decreasing pattern from southeast to northwest. Overall, the Songhua River Basin was warming and wetting, but there were some differences among different regions, especially the northern and southern parts of the Nenjiang River Basin.

With global climate change ongoing, there is growing concern about future living conditions in urban areas. This contribution presents the modelled spatial distribution of two daytime (summer days, hot days), and two night-time (warm nights and tropical nights) summer climate indices in the recent and future climate of the urban environment of Brno, Czech Republic, within the framework of local climate zones (LCZs). The thermodynamic MUKLIMO_3 model combined with the CUBOID method is used for spatial modelling. Climate indices are calculated from measurements over three periods (1961–1990, 1971–2000 and 1981–2010). The EURO-CORDEX database for two periods (2021–2050 and 2071–2100) and three representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios (2.6, 4.5 and 8.5) are employed to indicate future climate. The results show that the values of summer climate indices will significantly increase in the twenty-first century. In all LCZs, the increase per RCP 8.5 scenario is substantially more pronounced than scenarios per RCP 2.6 and 4.5. Our results indicate that a higher absolute increment in the number of hot days, warm nights and tropical nights is to be expected in already warmer, densely populated midrise and/or compact developments (LCZs 2, 3 and 5) in contrast to a substantially lower increment for forested areas (LCZ A). Considering the projected growth of summer climate indices and the profound differences that exist between LCZs, this study draws urgent attention to the importance of urban planning that works towards moderating the increasing heat stress in central European cities.

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of changes in mean and extreme temperature indices for Serbia using a high‐resolution daily gridded temperature data set during the period of 1951–2020. The annual and seasonal trends of the indices in the gridded fields were computed and tested for statistical significance using the nonparametric Mann–Kendall test and the Sen's slope estimator. The t‐test was applied to check the stability of means of temperature indices between two standard periods (1961–1990 and 1991–2020). A correlation analysis was used in order to investigate the connections of the large‐scale circulation patterns and the mean and extreme temperature indices. Results showed that a warming trend dominated for the last 70 years, with slightly more intense changes for the mean maximum temperatures (TXM) than for the mean minimum temperatures (TNM). An increase was recorded for indices based on the maximum temperature (TXM, hottest days, warm days, summer days) and minimum temperature (TNM, coldest nights, warm nights, tropical nights). The highest increase was observed for warm nights (7 days⋅decade−1) during the summer season. The negative change in cool days (−1.5 days⋅decade−1) and cool nights (−2 days⋅decade−1) was recorded in almost all seasons, being significant for the both annual and summer values. The correlation between the temperature indices and large‐scale circulation patterns revealed that the East Atlantic (EA) pattern had a highly positive correlation with warm temperature indices (hottest days, warm days, warm nights, summer days, and tropical nights) and a negative correlation with cold indices (coldest nights, cool days, cool nights, frost days, and ice days). The North Atlantic Oscillation, the most important teleconnection pattern during the winter months in Europe, had weaker influence on temperature indices in Serbia than the EA pattern, but stronger than the EA/Western Russia pattern.

<p>Aiming to provide comprehensive information for climate change at regional level, we assess temperature and heat waves and their spatiotemporal trend and time of emergence over different regions of the African continent.  We analyze observational data of Climate Research Unit Time Series version 4.03 (CRU TS) and the three state-of-the-art reanalysis datasets; European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis 5 (ERA5), National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA2) and the Japanese Meteorological Agency’s 55 years reanalysis (JRA-55). We assess changes in monthly mean temperature and the agreement between observations and reanalyses. Changes in heat waves are analyzed based on reanalysis datasets because of their high temporal resolution. Heat waves are defined using absolute and relative thresholds, the number of summer days, tropical nights, the percentage of days with maximum and mean temperature above the 90<sup>th</sup> percentile, the warm nights and the warm spell duration index.  The results show increasing trends in monthly mean temperature in all four regions of Africa with different rate of change. A statistically significant trends in heat waves is found in all the regions.  Years of highest heat wave occurrence are identified in 2010 for Northern and Western Africa and 2016 for Eastern and Southern Africa. Minimum-temperature based indices, tropical nights and warm nights, show the highest increase in decadal trends and earliest time of emergence, respectively.</p><p><strong>Key words:</strong> climate change; temperature; heat waves; time of emergence; reanalysis; Africa</p>

This paper examined the spatial and temporal patterns of selected temperature extreme indices using the Mann-Kendall method (MK), the standard t-test, and the Pearson correlation analysis method. The relationship between extreme temperature events and climate circulation indices was analysed in Tanzania between 1983 and 2016 using data from 1961 to 2018. The results uncover a rise in the frequency and intensity of balmy days and nights across Tanzania. It suggests a significant increase in trends and the frequency of mild temperature index days and warm nights. It also indicates an increase in the trends for warm temperature indices (hottest days (TXx), coldest days (TNx), warm days (TX90p), tropical night (TR20), and Warm Spell Duration Indicator (WSDI); and a decrease in cold temperature indices (cold days (TX10p), cold nights (TN10p), cold days (TXn), and Cold Spell Duration Indicator (CSDI); which imply that the lower temperature was gradually decreasing more than in the past. The results further suggest that warm days and nights are significantly correlated with the Tropical Northern Atlantic Index (TNA), the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The circulation indices, which were found to be substantially associated with temperature extreme indices, can aid in forecasting, and may potentially serve as a foundation for future studies, particularly in the dynamics and physical mechanisms related to temperature extremes. The results presented in this paper are also vital for developing proper mitigation and adaptation measures to reduce future risks associated with extremely high-temperature events.