Planning and Strategic Tools for Adapting Urban Areas to Climate Change in Poland

Abstract Shaping the development policy of states, regions and cities, referring to broadly understood issues related to the climate change adaptation process, is connected with the necessity of creating new and constantly updated planning and strategic documents and adjusting their provisions to the current needs, global civilisation processes and challenges as well as regional and local specifics. One of the important elements of the adaptation policy is to take into account the problem of urbanised areas adaptation to climate change and management of the built and natural environment resources. The subject of this paper are the planning and strategic tools used in development policy to adapt urbanised areas to climate change. The aim is to indicate the possibilities and limitations of planning instruments in the context of adaptation to climate change and to indicate their coherence in the context of implementation activities. The research includes the planning and strategic instruments developed in the area of sustainable management of the built and natural environment in recent years in Poland, with particular reference to the example of the Metropolis GZM.