Formation the local identity in the “thematic” Rural Renewal, The article aims to determine the main conditions for the development of rural thematic areas in the context of Rural Renewal. Against this background, the authors attempt to explain the mechanisms governing the discussed process and their effects. In view of the above, the focus was on presenting mechanisms for the development of processes that lead to the flowering of this idea (an anatomy of success – the case of the village of Sierakowo Sławieńskie) and those that slow down or completely limit this development (anatomy of failure – the case of the village of Lubcza).

Condition of Development of AgriTourism in the Grodno Region of the Republic of Belarus. The article studies the dynamics of the development of rural tourism in the Republic of Belarus and the Grodno Region for the period 2015-2017, as well as the results of a survey of the owners of rural estates.

In urban composition of both rural and urban areas, parks may play a significant role with particular influence on the spatial arrangement. In Strzelce Wielkie the village center and the surrounding open landscape were connected compositionally with the local manor park. As an significant element of urban layout, the park determined the form and location of the most important historical elements of the village.

Rural areas have great potential, which properly supported can signifi cantly accelerate the socio-economic development of the country. However, the resources and values of individual areas are spatially diversifi ed, which means the diversity of development challenges and the necessity to diversify the instruments of local development policy as well as the territorialisation of development policy. The need to deal with development issues in connection with the development of urban functional areas and, more broadly, node regions, remains unchanged for all types of rural areas, which means the necessity of joint planning of spatial development, implementation of common development strategies of the entire functional area and pursuit of common socio-economic goals. The endogenous theory of local development remains valid, but it must be based on resources that go beyond the administrative boundaries of a single municipality. The need for network local development planning applies in particularly to peripheral rural areas, since rural municipalities often do not have sufficient economic potential to stay competitive even on a local scale. Only in partnership with other municipalities, within the framework of nodal regions, they can implement more eff ective competitive strategies. Another aspect of the network cooperation is the need to involve non-public entities into local economy. Establishing partnerships for the implementation of development goals may increase the chances of achieving a favourable competitive position and implementation of effective development strategies.

The paper raises the issue of optimizing the control of the rural low voltage microgrids. Microgrids can operate in a synchronous mode with grids of distribution system operators and in an island mode. We can distinguish two control strategies in microgrids: one approach based on centralized control logic, which is usually used, and another on decentralized control logic. In this paper we decided to present the approach based on the distributed control, combining the efforts of the distributed cooperative control and modified Monte Carlo optimization method. Special attention has been paid to the impact of the order of processing particular devices’ groups on results of optimization calculations. Moreover, different scenarios of behavior of the microgrid control system with respect to the communication loss have been also presented. The influence of the issue of continuity of communication between particular devices’ groups on the possibility of carrying out the optimization process has been investigated. Additionally, characteristics of power loads and generation of electricity from small renewable energy sources appearing in rural areas have been described and the sensitivity of the optimization algorithm to the changes of demanded power values and changes of values of power generated by renewable energy sources has been studied. We analyzed different objective functions which can be used as an optimization goal both in synchronous and island operation modes of microgrid. We decided to intensively test our approach on a sample rural LV microgrid, which is typical in the countryside. The observed results of the tests have been presented and analyzed in detail. Generally, results achieved with the use of proposed distributed control are the same as with the use of centralized control. We think that the approach based on distributed control is promising for practical applications, because of its advantages.

Rural development policy of Agricultural Property Stock (APS) of the State Treasury in Poland is run by the National Support Centre for Agriculture (until 31.08.2017 Agricultural Property Agency). In the article, on the example of the Braniewo municipality, the size and spatial distribution of land transferred from the Agricultural Property Stock (APS) of the State Treasury to the municipality was analysed. One of the most important goals associated with this was activities related to social aspects, often part of the revitalization and renewal of the rural areas. After Poland's accession to the Euro-pean Union, it was possible to obtain subsidies that allowed the rural population to apply for financing projects, such as: road construction, creating school playgrounds or socio-cultural facilities. Authors also analysed examples of good practic-es in this area in the municipality of Braniewo, as a recommendation for other municipalities. Attempts have also been made to indicate the role of the National Support Centre for Agriculture in the transformation of the Polish countryside, with particular emphasis on the areas of former State Agricultural Farms.

The paper raises the issue of controlling rural low voltage microgrids in an optimal manner. The impact of different criterion functions, related to the amount of energy exchanged with the distribution system operator network, the level of active power losses, the amount of energy generated by different energy sources and the value of financial performance measures regarding the microgrid operation, on the choice of operating points for devices suggested by the optimization algorithm has been analyzed. Both island and synchronous microgrid operation modes are being considered. We propose two variants of the optimization procedure: the first one is based on the particle swarm optimization algorithm and centralized control logic, and the second one takes advantage of the decentralized approach and Monte Carlo methods. A comparison of the simulation results for two sample rural microgrids, obtained for different objective functions, microgrid operation modes and optimization procedure variants, with the use of prepared algorithm implementations, has been provided. The results show that the proper choice of an objective function can have a crucial impact on the optimization algorithm’s behavior, the choice of operating points and, as a consequence, on microgrid behavior as well. The choice of the proper form of the objective function is the responsibility of the person in charge of both the microgrid itself and its operation. This paper can contribute towards making correct decisions in this area. Generally, slightly better results have been achieved for the centralized control mode of operation. Nevertheless, the results also suggest that in many cases the approach based on distributed logic can return results that are better or sufficiently close to the ones provided by the centralized and more sophisticated approach.

The article deals with the issue of formation and functioning of rural tourism clusters in Ukraine. Here, formation of cluster structures in rural tourism is at its initial stage. Analysis of existing clusters resulted in their classification into groups based on the criterion of specialization: lodging and food (farmsteads), agritourist and local history tourism clusters. Analysis of the main research models for the creation and analysis of rural tourism clusters functioning has been performed. A multilevel universal model of the rural tourism clusters with basic structural levels (basic, affiliate and accompanying) has been proposed for scientific and practical purposes. This model was used to form two cluster initiatives in the ethnographic region of the Ukrainian Carpathians – in the Boykivshchyna. The need to use foreign experience in rural tourism cluster research has been emphasized.

The Polish energy sector is, to a large extent, based on fossil fuels used in conventional energy, which is not entirely consistent with the current energy policy of the European Union. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the use of renewable energy sources that guarantee the preservation of the value of the natural environment in rural areas. It should be emphasized that in addition to the economic effect, the environmental effect is very important, understood as the impact of renewable energy on the natural environment and the quality of life of rural residents. The intensive development of RES raises a lot of controversy among politicians, as well as among rural residents, who are also associated with the myths regarding renewable energy as harmful to the natural environment.

Rural development should be connected with the socio-economic situation, and even more so with the socio-cultural situation of its inhabitants, because it assumes that the development of rural areas in Poland is associated not only with agriculture, but also with historical and natural values and their durability.

The aim of this work is to determine the attitudes of the inhabitants of rural areas of the Podkarpackie Province on the impact of renewable energy sources on the natural environment. The work assumes that the durability of rural areas is largely connected with the ability to preserve their natural values, as well as ensuring a satisfactory quality of life for residents. The basic source of data was surveys carried out in 2017 among 282 inhabitants of the Podkarpackie Province .

In 1981, Polish canoeists (members of the Bystrze Academic Travel Club) made the first journey along the waters of the River Colca in the section located in Arequipa Province (Peru), along which the waters flow in a deep canyon. Information on this sporting achievement – and a description of the Canyon and its surrounding area filled the Peruvian press and tourist publications around the world, ensuring that the Colca Canyon became one of the most important goals for tourists anywhere in Peru from that time on. However, mass infl uxes of tourists, noisy trips, the development of hotel infrastructure and other items required in tourism have generated permanent change in the character of the Colca Valley, and done much to influence the lives of its inhabitants.

The article describes the problem of formation of the national rural green tourism brand of Ukraine during more than 20 years. The main stages of its formation were identified: introduction, formation and active development. The article analyzed the basic factors (regulatory-legal, informative, communicative, public-entrepreneurial) and tools of the national brand formation. It emphasized the important role of NGO Union of Rural Green Tourism of Ukraine in ensuring the functioning of the brand of the same name. On the basis of statistics, results of various sociological surveys of tourists and monitoring of rural tourism entities, the degree of formation and expressiveness of certain elements of brand equity by consumers and producers was estimated. The article describes the practice of functioning of the regional Carpathian sub-brand as the most recognizable and attractive for domestic and foreign clients. It considers modern problems related to the support and management of the national rural green tourism brand. The strategy for further development of the brand focuses on improving communication with consumers, expanding the range of products and services and actively supporting rural tourism entities in promoting the brand in the national and international services market.

The Water Framework Directive (WFD), whose basic aim was to create a legal back-ground for water bodies’ protection, undoubtedly affects all economic sectors. Being a specific and distinctly different water user, agriculture will have the greatest share in the implementation of WFD out of all sectors of national economy. This results from its special character (60% of the country area used by agriculture), large volume of water consumed by evapotranspiration, diffuse pollution etc. Implementation of WFD will call for undertaking of many activities to restrict an unfavourable im-pact of agriculture on water resources and water related ecosystems. It is assumed that agriculture should also protect water resources. Accomplishment of this task imposes significant changes in the land use of river basins. Water management can be an essential factor deciding about the sustainable development of rural areas and biological diversity of agricultural landscape. Actions undertaken so far to implement the WFD are mainly limited to the protection of water quality from agricultural pol-lution. It is also necessary to undertake implementation of other aims of WFD. This refers especially to the provision of good hydromorphological status of water bodies, protection of water related eco-systems and effective water use.

Being more sensitive to economic fluctuations, childbearing postponement increased during the second demographic transition and was accompanied by a moderate decline in the number of children per woman and the progressive rise of mother’s age at first birth. Under the hypothesis that recessions have a marked influence on population dynamics, the present study investigates spatial changes in mother’s age at birth in Greece with the aim to assess the differential impact of economic crisis along the urban-rural gradient. The percent composition of births by mother's age class – considered a gross indicator of fertility under a changing socioeconomic context – was studied at 4 spatial scales (the whole country, administrative regions, prefectures and metropolitan areas or specific economic districts) over an economic cycle from expansion to recession (1980–2016). While stimulating childbearing postponement observed since the early 1980s, empirical results of this study indicate that the 2007 recession was quite neutral on fertility trends in Greece, consolidating the traditional divide between urban and rural areas.

Trade is one of the key factors determining sustainable city development and its surroundings. City development is a result of provision of goods and services to city inhabitants, and residents of its surrounding areas. Retail trade in Poland belongs to economy sectors in which the processes of market changes were started the earliest. Discount stores that apply the strategy of low prices in the in the process of market conquering are currently one of the most dynamically developing selling formats. These shopping facilities are located in many Polish cities, including small towns and rural areas. The aim of the article is to show the scale of investments in new discount shops in small towns and rural areas in Poland in 2012–2015. Research focused at devoted to this field is important from the point of view of choosing the location of new investments related to discount chains and of the small towns and rural areas development strategies. Identification of consequences of discount chains operations in chosen rural areas and small towns can impact the verification of the policy adopted by local authorities in relation to spatial planning and forming the functional structure of the space. It will result in more conscious (rational) decisions in terms of localizing new discounts, which will reduce the number of local conflicts related to location of such facilities.