Protection of Air and Groundwater in Polish Municipalities of Varying Wealth as Adaptation to Climate Change

Abstract Protection of air and groundwater as an adaptation to climate change is currently one of the main economic and social challenges at both the global, national, regional and local levels. This is confirmed by the author’s review of the literature in this area. Higher wealth of Polish municipalities is not always consistent with greater municipal involvement in environmental protection and its results, which requires deeper analysis. Factors such as the nature of municipalities and the natural conditions of municipalities due to their spatial location are also important. The subject of this article’s research is a comparative analysis (based on detailed indicators of environmental governance of the Central Statistical Office (CSO)) of the degree of involvement of 30 Polish municipalities of varying wealth in air and groundwater protection, as well as a comparison of their natural conditions in terms of forest cover and biodiversity, which should promote better adaptation to climate change at the local level.