Rural areas as a challenge of urban water management in Poland

Access to sewage system is an important indicator of life quality. In 2016, 73% of the Polish population was connected to wastewater treatment plants. Although in cities this share is 95%, in rural areas it is only at 41%. There are still nearly 9 million people in rural areas without access to wastewater network. The purpose of this paper is to report on the current state of the sewage management infrastructure in Poland, especially in areas where the fastest migration processes occur, i.e. in form of suburbanisation. It also gives an overview of infrastructure development over the last 20 years. Geostatistical tools (Arc GIS 10.5.1) are also used to identify areas where access to the analysed infrastructure is the weakest and the best. The Getis-Ord Gi* statistics for each commune were calculated by use of the Hot Spot Analysis tool to identify the statistically significant spatial clusters with high values (hot spots) and low values (cold spots) of analysed parameters. Spatial differentiation of identified communes (especially rural communes) has been analysed, taking into account i. a. the borders of 26 polish functional urban areas (FUA), where the so-called integrated territorial investments (ITI) are implemented. The rural communes belonging to the cold spot were identified in 4 FUAs and the hot spots in 13 FUAs.