Vulnerability of Rural Areas to Climate Change – Analysis of Similar Units in Terms of Spatial Conditions for Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship

In the current decade, the fact that climate change is a continuous process and that humans have been contributing to this change is indisputable. Therefore, the whole society and the decision-makers who guide the process of application of regional policy principles, are facing a challenge as to which measures need to be taken to minimise the consequences of this change. Although we live in a global world, it can be observed that interactions occur in each unit on an individual basis. As we have more and more knowledge and information on the space, we can indicate which units, regions and spaces have the greatest predisposition to be subject to climate change. Moreover, being aware of the level of risk, we can attempt to implement tools that will help society to accept climate change and properly adapt to it. A space’s predisposition to climate change is not only determined by the weather, environmental or geographical conditions. The literature on the subject indicates three basic determinants of the predisposition, i.e. the exposure, vulnerability and the adaptive capacity. Only all of these elements grouped together can provide an answer to the question about a unit’s predisposition. The article focuses on the indices which represent all three determinants of the predisposition. It should be noted that depending on the availability of data and their aggregation, there is no possibility of using the same indices for all countries. This, however, does not prevent the performance of a uniform analysis for spaces included in the same statistics. The article presents a case study for agricultural land in the province of Warmia and Mazury. Using Ward’s method, four subregions with similar determinants of the predisposition to climate change were distinguished. Three subregions stand out, as two of them have a significant impact of exposure (S.1) and vulnerability (S.2), while the third subregion dominates in terms of adaptive capacity (S.4).