The underground city: the tourism potential of water and sewage infrastructure: the example of Poland

Industrial tourism and technical facilities are a fast-growing branch of tourism that contains areas of great growth potential. The article deals with one of them. The tourist potential of water and sewage infrastructure in selected Polish cities was analysed and assessed. The study covered 11 cities of diverse socioeconomic potentials around the country. For each city, data were collected that had various levels of detail with regard to visitor numbers, tourist types, facilities made available, events and other special celebrations. For supplementary data, unstructured interviews were also conducted with relevant employees identified in businesses. The analysis showed the studied form of tourism to have very high tourism potential. The work focuses on factors and features accounting for its currently low level of development. It is also emphasised that, based on current tourism trends, it should be expected to continue to grow rapidly in the coming years, and thus warrants further research.

Metropolitan bicycle-sharing system in the Polish context of various needs of cities, towns, and villages

Bicycle-sharing systems (BSSs) have started to play an important role in the transport systems of cities worldwide as a sustainable alternative to the dominant motorised mobility culture. BSSs have also expanded over time to include regions and metropolitan areas as well as small towns and rural areas. The purpose of this paper is to identify and compare the goals of connecting individual communes in a metropolitan area to a metropolitan bicycle system. The authors applied a case study of the MEVO metropolitan bicycle system consisting of electrically assisted bicycles, introduced in 2019 in 14 communes of the Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot Metropolitan Area (GGSMA) in Poland. The study used GGSMA-designated metropolitan zoning to group the goals pursued by the participants when joining the project. This paper is the first to identify the goals that inclined small towns and rural areas to accede to the BSS. The results show that the largest cities in the metropolis that make up its core count on bike sharing to solve the problems of congested city centres, while small towns and rural areas see the BSS as an opportunity to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants, as the first mode of public transport, as an opportunity to be closer and more identified with the metropolitan core, and as a chance to develop tourism and recreation.

Determinants of farmland prices and their local variation

The setting of farmland prices in the market not only reflects existing agricultural activities but also expected potential for development. This study decomposes farmland prices into values representative of current agricultural production and the prospective development potential at the county level in South Korea. The income value of farmland is derived by analysing agricultural revenue and production cost, and the sale value of farmland is estimated by reviewing transaction prices filed with the administrative authority. The difference between income value and sale value is adopted as the development value in this study. The results of the estimation show that the proportion of development value in the price of farmland is remarkably high, with a median proportion of 0.78, indicating that the threat of converting land to non-agricultural use is non-trivial because it remains a financially attractive alternative. In addition, the magnitude of the portion of the development value in the price of farmland varies considerably across counties depending on the distance to nearby metropolitan cities. This implies that agricultural policy should be designed in a locally optimised manner to effectively restrain the conversion of farmland for urban use.

The potential of data exploration methods in identifying the relationship between short-period (daily) water consumption and meteorological factors

The purpose of the work was to identify the hidden relationship between water consumption and meteorological factors, using principal component analysis. In addition, clusters of similar days were identified based on relationships identified by k-means. The study was based on data from the city of Toruń (Poland). The analysis was based on daily data from 2014–2017 divided into three groups. Group I included data from the entire period, Group II- from warm half-years (April–September), and Group III-from cold half-years (January–March and October–December). For Groups I and II the extent of water consumption was explained by two principal components. PC1 includes variables that increase water consumption, and PC2 includes variables that lessen water demand. In Group III, water consumption was not linked to any component. The k-means method was used to identify clusters of similar days. In terms of PC1, the most numerous days were Saturdays, and in terms of PC2 Sundays and holidays. It was determined that further research aimed at explaining the specificity of water consumption on particular days of the week is appropriate.

Changes in the distribution of economic activity in Wrocław and its suburban area, 2008–2016

This article presents changes in the distribution of economic activity in Wrocław and its suburbs in the period 2008–2016. The study is based on the analysis of data from the REGON database. Additionally, the article presents the impact of migration of economic entities attributed to suburbanisation of economic entities on the changes noted in the distribution of economic entities in the Wrocław agglomeration. The article also presents the characteristics of migrating economic entities as part of the suburbanisation of economic entities in terms of numbers and types, as well as legal and capital status. Suburbanisation of economic entities was demonstrated to have a significant impact on the distribution of economic entities, both in Wrocław and in its suburban area, throughout the period of analysis.

An evaluation of urbanisation processes in suburban zones using land-cover data and fuzzy set theory

The aim of this article was to evaluate urbanisation processes in space using the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) databases. The study was conducted in the rural municipality of Dywity in the direct vicinity of the city of Olsztyn. Basic concepts and methods for evaluating urbanisation processes were determined based on a review of the literature. The article addresses issues related to spatial management and GIS as a data source and a tool for analysing land management activities. The search for new methods for evaluating spatial management and spatial processes plays a particularly important role in rapidly urbanising areas. The study explored the applicability of GIS as a data source and a tool for evaluating urbanisation processes in studies that rely on modern methods such as fuzzy set theory. The intensity and dynamics of urbanisation processes were evaluated based on changes in land cover with the use of CLC databases.

Legal and water management policy during climate warming in Poland

The article discusses some of the effects of global warming on rivers, lakes and underground water in Poland. It documents serious difficulties in river shipping and energy, as well as the exposing of areas previously occupied by lakes as a result water levels lowering. It is pointed out that the rapid increase in intensive irrigation of agricultural areas is causing excessive exploitation of underground water. The analysis takes into account the relevant data. The presentation of the effects of global warming is expanded upon with the legal provisions applicable in these situations. In the absence of climate change law, these are general regulations that face a number of difficulties in application. The detailing of areas of law and hydrology leads to the conclusion that Poland lacks a coherent policy on climate warming.

Analysis of the visibility and signal strength of the LoRaWAN network in an urbanized area – a case study of the Bielany campus at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

In order to assess or determine the overall quality of the surrounding geographical environment, it is necessary to measure selected factors that directly or indirectly affect its condition. The aspects to be monitored include i.a. air pollution levels, surface water purity, soil erosion rates, as well as night sky light pollution, a phenomenon increasingly often observed with the unaided eye. To collect data on the night sky brightness on a regular basis, a remote measuring device was designed and constructed using specialised electronic components, wireless communication, programming code, a high-sensitivity digital light data logger and custom-made programme code. LPWAN networks, including LoRa technology, were developed to support a number of mobile devices where long wireless operation is a priority. To determine the potential use of LoRa technology, as well as to plan the target locations of network access gates (gateways) and the deployment of measuring devices for the collection of environmental data, tests of signal coverage and signal visibility, including measurements of its strength, were carried out in a selected, compact part of the city of Toruń. The paper presents the results of research on the visibility of the LoRa network in a built-up area, such as a university campus, using antennas of two different lengths. The obtained results can be used to design distributed measurement networks in areas with varying density of buildings.

A theoretical foundation for investigating the spatial economic attributes of airport-centric developments

Among the various areas of interest on the topic of airports and the geographical distribution of land use, one pertinent theme is the spatial economic analysis of airports and their environs. However, the existing literature predominantly focuses on describing the land-use composition of airport-centric developments, without unpacking the spatial economic forces at play. This gap brings to the fore the need to employ an appropriate theoretical lens to guide the spatial economic analysis of airports and their environs. The aim of this theoretical review paper is thus to identify concepts that are relevant to the analysis of airports and their environs; and to use those concepts to systematically identify the existing theory that is most suitable for investigating the spatial economic forces that drive airport-centric developments. Against the background of globalisation, we scrutinise classical location theories, regional science, growth pole theory and new economic geography against their relational interpretations of the concepts of space, proximity, firm, scale and pattern. Given that it portrays a relational perspective of the aforesaid concepts, the paper concludes that growth pole theory is suitable as the main framework for analysing airport-centric developments. It is therefore recommended that growth pole theory be empirically used to guide the analysis of airports and their environs, and subsequently be used as the basis for developing a theoretical framework tailored for airport-centric developments.

Spatial convergence of mortality in Poland

Aim The aim is to observe whether there is a territorial similarity of changes in mortality due to selected causes in Poland in the years 2002–2017. Convergence models were used to verify the hypothesis that, since Poland's accession to the EU, the country has seen a spatial convergence of mortality due to major causes of death. Results and conclusion The country's provinces have been homogenising in terms of death intensity levels evening out for the majority of examined groups of causes. This is indicated by the confirmed absolute beta-convergence for most variables, including the two major causes of death: I00–I99 and C00–D48. However, a confirmation of beta-convergence does not always apply to both a broader and a narrower group of causes. In turn, sigma-divergence of mortality due to most of the examined causes in Poland's provinces indicates increasing variation in the years 2002–2017, which means that the provinces were not becoming similar. Such findings indicate that the formulated hypothesis has not been confirmed.