The atlas will highlight the physical-geographical trends and socio-economic aspects of sustainable development, environmental protection issues and Romania´s role within the current international geopolitical and geostrategic context. The explanatory texts, graphs and diagrams appended to each map will offer a detailed picture of the thematic content of this work.
The geographic study of regional development of Romania. This research project, the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration, is part of a wider synthesis of Romania´s geographical development with highlight on the natural and human potential of its eight development regions, of regional and inter-regional disparities caused by favourable or restrictive factors in the country´s social-economic progress. The authors pinpoint the gaps between town and countryside, between disadvantaged areas and areas of sustainable development potential. Regional analyses have in view human availabilities, economic activities, industrial concentrations within development regions, tourism opportunities, social phenomena, in general and unemployment, in particular. Regional development policies and strategies, objectives and programmes targeting sustainable development domains and zones are also discussed.
Geographical study of protected areas in Romania. This project falls in line with a highly topical issue, namely, environmental protection to improve the management of resources and create a natural, non-degraded framework for society. The diversification of human activity and the level of nature degradation require urgent and severe measures to protect the environment. The Institute of Geography is part of the recent national effort to meet this goal. The theme inscribed in its research plan includes the mapping of protected areas, the outline of their internal structure and the detection of negative factors which affect the balance of protected ecosystems. So far now, Romania´s 17 national and natural parks, officially granted this status in 2003, have been inventoried, localized and marked out on maps (scale 1:25 000 and 1:50 000) that are expected to be useful especially to the completion of local territorial planning schemes. The complex geographical study of nature reserves scheduled for 2006 and 2007 targets protected natural areas in Oltenia and Muntenia.
Geographical study of euroregions and cross-border cooperation potential against the background of Romania´s EU integration. The contradiction between institutional division of the territory and the existence of cross-border issues that have requested a unitary approach and consequently a cross-border cooperation led to the appearance of new types of regional cooperation structures. Which coincide with the state frontiers: cross-border zones and Euroregions. This kind of cooperation should take into consideration the fact that between the two cross-border zones there is a strip of frontier and, most of the times, there are different legislations that induce different requests regarding the cooperation framework. Consequently, the braking up process represents the main threat to the cross-border regions; if this process is not properly coordinated at the central level, there is the risk of loosing control, the cross-border region gravitating towards one of the co-participant states. The issues that fuel the dynamic of the cross-border zones are part of the level of harmonization of the politics for the development of the two cross-border zones that come in contact. The areas situated on each side of the border have, or have not the tendency to evolve in the same way, as a result of central and local politics, but also the local specific situations, which impose the cross-border zone type.
Analysing the cross-border zones with Romanian participation from this point of view, it can be said that while the southern cross-border zones (Romanian-Bulgarian one and Romanian-Serbian one) have characteristics similar to those in the first category; those with the Republic of Moldavia and Ukraine, due to the spreading of the Romanian ethnic bloc on each side of the border, join the second category. The Romanian-Hungarian cross-border zone can also be included in the second category; the Romanian authorities see this zone as an opening gate towards the Occident, the European and Euro-Atlantic structures, while Budapest sees it as a linking gate with the Hungarian communities from Transylvania. That is why this cross-border zone was extended by setting up the first Euro-region with Romanian participation: the Carpathian Euro-region, Danube-Mures-Tisa Euro-region (DKMT) and, recently, Bihor-Hajdú Bihar Euro-region, based on the Oradea-Debrecen collaboration.
• Project coordinator: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (Mpi-M), Hamburg, Germany
• Period: 2006 – 2009
The Institute of Geography colaborates with several profile institutes from Germany, France, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria and Romania to a European Union priority project regarding the effects of c1imate change and variability on the environment and society. The project coordinator of CLAVIER, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, is a well-known institute with an international recognition for its fundamental researches undertaken for the elaboration of comprehensive models concerning the Earth System.
The CLAVIER project inc1udes 3 major objectives which are the main research themes for 7 workpackages (WP). Each workpackage is structured in well defined activities and has c1ear deliverables and milestones. The CLAVIER objectives are:
-Investigation of ongoing and future c1imatechanges and their associated uncertainties in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC);
-Analyses of possible impact of climate changes in CEEC on weather pattern and extremes, air pollution, human health, natural ecosystems, forestry, agriculture and infrastructure as well as water resources;
-Evaluation of the economic impacts of c1imate changes on CEEC economies, concentrating on four economic sectors, which are agriculture, tourism, energy supply and the public sector.
The structure ofthe CLAVIER project underlines the importance ofboth the overall study and the regional research network for CEEC aiming at facilitating the elaboration and dissemination of research outcomes for decision-makers at regional and national levels.
For more information please visit www.clavier-eu.org
• Project coordinator: Geneve University (UNIGE), Switzerland
• Period: 2009 – 2012
The main duties of the Institute of Geography in the framework of this project (WP5 - Task 5.3 Agriculture and Task 5.6 Disasters Early Warning, Sub-task 5.6.2. Invasive Terrestrial Plant Species in the Romanian protected areas) are related to:
-Setting up a GIS-based national data-base on Invasive Plant Species (ITPS) in Romania with special focus on the protected areas;
-Evaluation of the ITPS in the Romanian protected areas by identifying and analyzing the main environmental driving forces (natural and human-induced) responsible for their introduction and spread;
-Developing an invasive terrestrial plant species potential distribution model (ITPS-podismod) able to predict their distribution, spread and recurrence in the selected protected areas from the five biogeographical regions of Romania:
Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve (for the pontic bioregion), Măcin Mountains National Park (for the steppic bioregion), Mureş Floodplain Natural Park (for the pannonic bioregion), Comana Natural Park (for the continental bioregion) and
Rodna Mountains National Park and Maramureş Mountains Natural Park (for the alpine bioregion);
-Accomplishing a historical overview of land property and land relations in Modern Times Romania, land reforms, policy-related changes (land reforms, land use changes and dynamics, land fund under the transition to the market economy and EU accession etc.); agricultural land use by type and form of property; animal breeding;
-Identifying the causes of agricultural changes in Romania - as a part of the former communist block, sharing common evolution trends and particularities with other former communist countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic etc);
-Modelling agri-environmental issues with the GIS-based EPIC model by identifying of important/relevant agri-environmental issues and potential impact areas by selecting relevant national level indicators in order to apply a country level GIS-based Environmental Policy Impact Calculator (GEPIC) model.
For more information please visit www.envirogrids.net
• Project coordinator: Viena City Hall, Austria
• Period: 2009 – 2012
The main IGAR activities in the framework of this project are related to:
-The application of two land use models: CLUE-S (Conversion of Land Use and its Effects) model – it is a dynamic model, which describes changes in the area of the different land use types. Besides tracking past or historical land use changes, the objective is to explore possible land use changes in the near future under different development scenarios, having a time horizon of about 20 years and GIS – based Environmental Policy Integrated Climate Model – GEPIC model in order to assess the agricultural productivity given certain inputs which might be influenced by climate change (precipitationes, irrigation, etc;
-Elaboration of land use maps and maps of land use changes;
-Assessment of main agricultural-related environmental impact categories in terms of: excessive fragmentation of arable land, very high proportion of subsistence individual farms, poor development of services in agriculture - mechanization, fertilization, irrigation -, marked degradation of land, etc.
For more information please visit www.ccwaters.eu
• Project coordinator: Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)
• Period: 2011 – 2013
The central objective of ECLISE is to take the first step towards the realisation of a European Climate Service. ECLISE is a European effort in which researchers, in close cooperation with users, develop and demonstrate local climate services to support climate adaption policies.
It does so by providing climate services for several climate-vulnerable regions in Europe, organized at a sectorial level: coastal defence, cities, water resources and energy production. Furthermore, ECLISE will define, in conceptual terms, how a pan-European Climate Service could be developed in the future, based on experiences from the aforementioned local services and the involvement of a broader set of European decision makers and stakeholders.
The main objectives of ECLISE are:
-To provide a European perspective to the functionality of climate services and the entrainment of national services into a broader European approach;
-To take a first step towards the realisation of a European Climate Service, addressing climate information needs of the EU and its Member States.
-To capitalize on previous research projects and bring together European climate research expertise and the needs of public and private organizations on future climate information.
To further develop local climate services in four areas, Coasts, Cities, Water and Energy, and to make concrete demonstrations of the utility of these
services in support of local climate adaptation policies.
-To provide an outline and proof of concept for future European-wide Climate Services.
The first component of ECLISE constitutes the bulk of the project and is dedicated to the
generation of climate information on four selected thematic/sectorial areas in Europe:
Coasts, Cities, Water and Energy in close cooperation with local users.
The Institute of Geography is involved in the ECLISE project with the coordination of 3 local case studies (Baia Mare town, the Vrancea Seismogenic Region and the Baragan Plain) regarding studies on water management issues, landslide and risk assessment and the impact of climate change on urban areas.
For more information please visit www.eclise-project.eu
Between 2011 and 2014, the Institute of Geography will be involved in the FP 7 Project CHANGES. The CHANGES network will develop an advanced understanding of how global changes (related to environmental and climate change as well as socio-economical change) will affect the temporal and spatial patterns of hydro-meteorological hazards and associated risks in Europe; how these changes can be assessed, modeled, and incorporated in sustainable risk management strategies, focusing on spatial planning, emergency preparedness and risk communication.
Romania will host one of the project's four case-studies, represented by Buzau County. The researches will be conducted within the Institute of Geography and the Patarlagele Natural Hazards Research Centre.
A series of 12 Ph.D positions, financed by the European Community, are available within the European Marie Curie Initial Training Network CHANGES.
For more information please visit www.itc.nl/changes
• Decision-making conceptual system to support the management of urban waters (URBWATER). Coordinator: Dr. Radu Sageata
• Convergent interdisciplinary solutions for territorial planning and for the structure of transport systems to attain sustainable development and a better quality of life (TERITRANS). Coordinator: Prof. Claudia Popescu
• Tools, guidelines and indicators to include environmental aspects in agricultural, forestry and water management policies, from top-down approaches to involving the local communities (TOGI). Coordinator: Prof. Dan Balteanu
• Complex ecological method of estimating and biomonitoring the Somes Drainage Basin (MONISON). Coordinator: Calin Danut
• Integrated assessment of the mining impact on the environment of the Upper Crisul Alb and Certej basins (Apuseni Mts), Romania, and cross-border river pollution. Coordinator: Prof. Dan Balteanu
• G I S – based elaboration of hazard maps and assessment of the quality of the environment in the mining areas of Maramures and Satu Mare counties. Coordinator: Dr. Basarab Driga
• Depleting the environmental impact of hazardous solid wastes by inactivation, conformable with the EU Aquis (INERTECH). Coordinator: Dr. Basarab Driga
• Sustainable management of solid wastes deposited within inactive mining sites, conformable with the EU Aquis (DESOLSITMIN). Coordinator: Dr. Basarab Driga
• Transformation of old historical salines for the sustainable use of rock salt resources in eco-tourism and relaxation treatments (RESTSALDUR). Coordinator: Dr. Basarab Driga
• Implementation of the European environment policy to efficiently use rock salt resources (MEDEUROSAR). Coordinator: Daniel Ciupitu