Priorities and new challenges of the local environmental policy in the Silesia region

The main aim of this paper is to assess the implementation of the main priorities of the local environmental policy in the Silesian province, and to identify new areas of action undertaken by local authorities in the field of environmental policy. The basic research methods used in the paper include the analysis of the literature and available data on the environment condition in the Silesian province and primary data obtained through surveys conducted within statutory research: Department of Environmental Management and the Department of Social and Economic Policy at the University of Economics in Katowice, within the years of 2012 and 2015. Based on the obtained results, three priority groups were determined: I. “traditional”, which included issues related to water and wastewater management and municipal waste management, II. a constant low level in the hierarchy of local authorities’ priorities – issues related to the revitalization and rehabilitation of brownfield sites, noise protection and ecological construction; III. “emerging” with the greatest increase in the rank awarded by the local authorities – the problems of creating a low carbon economy and air protection, the protection of ecosystem services in urban areas, flood protection