Summary:

For more efficient realization of the National Plan of Development and the strategy of equalizing regional needs of rural areas and agriculture it is necessary to develop applied research on changes in the infrastructure and multifunctional character of rural areas. It is necessary to update and develop new methodologies and methods of horizontal and vertical comparisons of the studied space objects, i.e. villages, communes or regions (counties) in a selected region (province) or macro region of Poland.
A comparative assessment has been suggested with a division into:
- characteristics of studied objects (e.g. communes),
- their structural development,
- multifunctional character of the studied rural area.
Proposed characteristics of researched objects (communes) should by based on an assessment of at least 10 factors pertaining to the area (total area, forest, arable area, permanent grasslands and soil quality) and rural dwellers, their households connected and unconnected with farms.
A hitherto development of commune technical infrastructure can be determined using 10 factors, the parameters of which may be assessed by percentage numbers (%) in relation to the number of households per commune.
Characterizing of commune multifunctional character may be established according to jobs and employment structure or sources of income of the inhabitants. It was suggested to consider 15 sources of income "employment" and 20 factors of assessment of a commune multifunctional character.
The input data necessary to assess the level of technical infrastructure assessment and multifunctional character of communes may be obtained from material of the National Census and Agricultural Census from 1996 and 2002 and recent statistics accumulated by territorial self-governments.
Attempts have been made at stating synthetic parameters (indices) numerically characterizing the development level of the studied region and the level of its infrastructure and multifunctional character. Suggested new methodology bases on literature studies and field observations in several selected communes. The methodological suggestions should be verifies through research on a greater group of communes before they could be used in practice.
It is necessary to conduct studies and basic research on proper determination of interrelations between parameters describing space, infrastructure and multifunctional character of rural areas in different parts of the country.