Summary:

Present state and predicted development of technical, particularly network infrastructure, comprising elements and facilities of water supply and sewage disposal, is connected with various aspects of spatial management. There is a strict interrelation between the size of settlement units and the number of objects and facilities of infrastructure localized in their area. The degree of built-up density in rural areas and ground-water relationships have a significant influence on the construction costs of collective water supply and sewage disposal system. In the extremely unfavourable ground-water and terrain conditions the costs may be even twice higher than in moderate or advantageous conditions. Therefore in agricultural communes localized in sumbmontane areas with generally low budgetary incomes, investments connected with sewerage system construction are replaced, under the pressure of local communities, by investments on water supply systems.
The article aims at describing the state of saturation with water supply and sewage disposal infrastructure in communes of the nowosądecki and limanowski counties during the period from 1990 until 2003.The state of individual communes equipment in the studied elements of infrastructure was described using saturation indices expressing the relationship of the network length per 100 km2. The indices were computed for the time span from 1990 till 2003, which allowed for estimation of changes in saturation and average rate of changes for all 25 studied communes. For better illustration of water supply and sewage disposal in the communes of both counties, the number of water supply and sewage disposal cross connections was also estimated, as well as the number and throughput of sewage treatment plants and the population number served by collective sewage treatment plants.
Estimating the state of water supply and sewage disposal infrastructure in the studied area a considerable irregularity of saturation with these elements of infrastructure was found in individual years. The rate of sewer system growth has exceeded the growth of water supply system only since the second half of the nineties. However, extension of sewer system still does not keep up with the development of collective water supply systems. It causes further, disadvantageous for the environment, underdevelopment of sewer system in comparison to the water supply system.