Little is known about the effectiveness of district plans in protecting built heritage, which is a matter of national importance under New Zealand's Resource Management Act 1991 (RMAct). This is despite the fact that the RMAct directs planning agencies to evaluate the effectiveness of plan provisions. This lack of evaluation is not unique to New Zealand or merely symptomatic of heritage planning. Instead, it is a shortcoming in planning theory and practice internationally; a well recognised impediment being that planning lacks a suitable evaluation approach. This thesis aims to address this deficiency by proposing a methodology for evaluating plan effectiveness and applying it to the built heritage provisions of two district plans. The methodology adopted has been shaped by the theory-based and realist evaluation approaches, as developed in the field of programme evaluation. Both approaches share a common ontology regarding claims of causality, which stresses 'knowledge in context'. Thus, a central endeavour of the research is not only to identify the environmental outcomes arising from plan implementation, but also to understand how and why the implementation context promoted or inhibited the achievement of plan goals. In so doing, the causal and implementation theories underpinning the plans' heritage provisions are exposed, modelled and tested. The findings reveal that plan implementation failed to prevent the loss of built heritage values in many instances. While the plans' causal theory was largely sound, key aspects of the implementation theory were not realised during the development control process. Plan quality was a significant factor, as was the commitment and capacity of developers to comply with the plans. The institutional fixation on consent processing speed rather than environmental outcomes was a further impediment. Overall, the theory-based approach provided a useful framework for determining plan effectiveness and holds promise for evaluating plan issues other than built heritage.

The thesis analyses municipality with a delegated local authority's preparedness for critical situations which results from the critical scheme of a municipality with extended powers. The results of this work are Crisis Preparedness Plan for the particular municipality which may be applied in practice. Processing of this part of the work is based on data gathering and solving when I mainly used factual and analytical method. Consultation with experts was also important since some sources were not always topical due to frequent legal decrees changes. The data gathering was done in a qualitative way when I worked with particular valid laws, government regulations, public notices and other legal norms and with available literature data, expert publications including website information, especially from official website of individual Integrated Rescue System units and the Home Office. In the research part itself, the city of Březnice is characterized and for which the Crisis Preparedness Plan is being made. General administrative characteristics of the city and municipalities which arise under are stated here as well as demography, infrastructure, geographical and climatic characterization. Important facilities from the point of view of population protection, such as schools, school and social facilities are graphically shown here; followed by characteristics of Integrated Rescue System units in the city together with instruments which are available to them. Another important part of the thesis is the hazard analysis which I had been given by the Czech Republic Fire Brigade from the Crisis Plan of Příbram's Area with Extended Powers and it has become the crucial source while writing this work. The hazard analysis identifies 14 threats which may occur in the Příbram Area. The most important part of this thesis is, in my opinion, the hazard analysis of the city of Březnice. Not all of the hazards may appear in the administrative area of the city Březnice, however, there may occur certain threats in this administrative area which are not underpinned in the Crisis Plan of the Příbram Area. Here I have come to the key findings crisis plans of the areas with extended powers are rather general and insufficient for preparing solutions of critical situations development in administrative areas with a delegated authority. I have come to those findings after having made a SWAT analysis and thanks to this I have discovered threats which were not dealt with in the crisis plan.There are several findings as a result of this thesis and the suggestion of the Plan of Crisis Preparedness of a municipality with delegated authority of Březnice. The first finding answers the research question of "Which are the hazards threatening performance of the tasks of a municipality with delegated authority of Březnice resulting from the Crisis Plan of Příbram's Area with Extended Powers and whether the municipality is ready to deal with these threats?" The city of Březnice is not quite prepared for upcoming hazards since there are not analyzed all threats which may occur, because these plans are too general to analyze well the setting of lower administrative districts and this has become the next finding. Further, I may claim that the city of Březnice is, in many ways, independent while dealing with certain crisis situations due to sources which the city provides. This is another aim of the work. The created suggestion of the Plan of Crisis Preparedness should contribute to effective solutions during crisis situations in a municipality with delegated authority of Březnice and thanks to created cards; the solution of crisis situations should become better-arranged with the plans. The created suggestion of the mentioned plan may become a model for processing crisis documentation in other municipalities.

Renewable energy resources in the Czech Republic, especially photovoltaics, have experienced a great boom in the past few years. The investment in the photovoltaic plants has been and will be a very promising field for investors unless too many legislative barriers are adopted to make the investments unattractive. This diploma thesis therefore elaborates a real world business case of a solar power plant. Within the business case a sensitivity analysis is being made to evaluate the influences of external factors that may have a major impract on the effectiveness and returnability of the project. Conclusions made in the analysis help to make the desicion whether to realize or not to realize the project.