Summary:

The paper reviews and briefly characterizes documents devoted to the implementation of sustainable development policies in Polish communes within environment protection and shaping issues. The analysis embraces several obligatory documents drawn up by Polish communes, such as: ecophysiographic studies, environment protection programmes, waste management plans, energy supply plans, ecological education plans, studies of determinants and directions of spatial management, local spatial plans. It also deals with other optional documents: natural resource inventories, development strategies, local develop-ment plans and ecological policies. Moreover, based on specialized literature, the paper outlines the condition and quality of studies drawn up in Polish communes. Out of the researched in-ventory of communes, approx. 23% have developed natural resource inventories, 28% have created ecophysiographic studies, and nearly 77% – studies of deter-minants. Active participation of communes in the process of eco-development planning varies in particular parts of Poland: most active communes are situated in the provinces of Lublin, Lower Silesia, and Mazovia; whilst the least active in the provinces of Łódź, Opole, and Podlasie. Most common flaws of ecophysiographic studies, which act as the basic source of information for the needs of eco-development, involve: inaccurate geo-complex delimitation, methodological drawbacks regarding the evaluation of anthropopressure resistance, and the lack of prognoses on environment changes. The author puts forward several suggestions, whose implementation would im-prove the processes of environment protection and shaping in Poland: standard-ising the methodology of developing basic documents for the purposes of eco-development, introducing a unified system of their verification, involving physi-ographists and ecologists (along with spatial planners) into the process of creat-ing ecophysiographic studies, developing a special algorithm for the selection of documents suitable for particular communes.