Settlement history and sustainability in the Carpathians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

As part of a historical study of the Carpathian ecoregion, to identify salient features of the changing human geography, this paper deals with the 18th and 19th centuries when there was a large measure political unity arising from the expansion of the Habsburg Empire. In addition to a growth of population, economic expansion - particularly in the railway age - greatly increased pressure on resources: evident through peasant colonisation of high mountain surfaces (as in the Apuseni Mountains) as well as industrial growth most evident in a number of metallurgical centres and the logging activity following the railway alignments through spruce-fir forests. Spa tourism is examined and particular reference is made to the pastoral economy of the Sibiu area nourished by long-wave transhumance until more stringent frontier controls gave rise to a measure of diversification and resettlement. It is evident that ecological risk increased, with some awareness of the need for conservation, although substantial innovations did not occur until after the First World War.The Carpathian ecoregion, Habsburg Empire, settlement history

Rural poverty in Romania and the need for diversification: Carpathian studies

The poverty problem is particularly serious in rural Romania and arises from heavy dependence on small subsistence farms with little alternative employment. Case studies from the Carpathians reveal that there is no viable basis for intensification on these farms and there is a consensus that it is irrational to try and modernise them unless the average size can increase substantially. Hence the solution lies in a massive structural change in agriculture linked with retraining and redeployment of a section of the present workforce. However new jobs in agricultural services and light industry will depend on a radical improvement of the rural infrastructure and higher spending power by the rural population as a whole. (author's abstract)Das Problem der Armut wird in den ländlichen Gebieten Rumäniens besonders deutlich. Ursache dafür ist die starke Abhängigkeit von sehr kleinen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben, für die es kaum alternative Beschäftigungsmöglichkeiten gibt. Fallstudien in den Karpaten zeigen, dass die Intensivierung der Landwirtschaft in diesen Betrieben keine Überlebenschance hat. Ferner sind sich die Wissenschaftler darin einig, dass es ganz einfach irrational wäre, den Versuch zu starten, diese Betriebe zu modernisieren, solange deren durchschnittliche Größe nicht wesentlich gesteigert werden kann. Folglich besteht die Lösung in einer grundlegenden und tief greifenden Strukturveränderung der Landwirtschaft, die mit Umschulung und Umlagerung eines Teils der vorhandenen Arbeitskräfte verbunden ist. Neue Jobs in der Landwirtschaft und Leichtindustrie hängen jedoch von einer radikalen Verbesserung der ländlichen Infrastruktur und einer höheren Kaufkraft der ländlichen Bevölkerung insgesamt ab. (Autorenreferat

SETTLEMENTS AND TOPONOMY IN THE PĂTÂRLAGELE DEPRESSION: THE PĂNĂTĂU AND SIBICIU LOCALITIES

Les Subcarpates sont connues comme une région bien peuplée depuis des temps anciens, mais il est évident que beaucoup de localités sont relativement modernes et reflètent l’expansion de l’agriculture de subsistance des plaines alluviales vers les versants durant une période d’aigue pression démographique et de restructuration économique lors du XIXe, et du XXe–siècle. Cette phase de croissance est examinée dans ce contexte dans la dépression de Pătârlagele, spécialement les localités du côté est de la vallée de Buzău: les localités de Pănătău et de Sibiciu. Un intérêt particulier est accordé à la toponymie présente dans les cartes à grande échelle et les textes clés (notamment le dictionnaire de Iorgulescu de 1892) à laquelle on ajoute le témoignage oral très riche. Les auteurs prêtent attention aussi bien aux terrasses qu’aux surfaces affectées par des glissements adjacents, puisque ces dernières ont été bien attrayantes aux pionniers de l’agriculture, à cause de leur fertilité et humidité, dans un temps que les terrasses étaient utilisées presque exclusivement pour une économie de marché.Quelques surfaces utilisées aujourd’hui pour le foin, pour les pâturages et les vergers de prunes étaient bien cultivées, alors que les terrains à fonction céréalière acquis dans la plaine du Bărăgan, par la réforme agraire de 1923 se sont diversifiés du point de vue économique d’une manière accélérée après 1945. La toponymie est considérée par conséquent comme une source majeure dans la compréhension d’une importante phase du peuplement rural. Alors que les noms des lieux éveillent beaucoup d’intérêt pour l’écologie et les études concernant le potentiel de l’environnement tenant compte de la survivance des familles étendues et d’autres petitescommunautés, il y a peu d’information sur l’origine des localités plus anciennes

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF SETTLEMENTS IN THE PĂTÂRLAGELE DEPRESSION: THE EARLY CARTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

La géographie historique des etablissements de la depression subcarpatique de Pătârlagele: evidence cartographique pour la période jusqu’a c.1850. Nos recherches pour clarifier l’histoire de développement rurale (espécialement les villages) avec regard pour l’evidence documentaire a trouvé beaucoup d’assistance grâce a les cartes historiques – meme les exemples avec une petite échelle exécutées pour la Valachie pendant les dix-huitième et dix-neuvième siècles. Il est possible d’identifier quelques villages mais naturellement les premières cartes de grande échelle sont plus importantes pour etablir une système primaire: par exemple la carte russe (1853) at la carte de Szathmary (1864), éspecialement avec l’assistance d’autres types d’evidence. De temps en temps les cartes donnent la première épreuve d’existence, mais on dois attendre les collections topographiques au fin de la dix-neuvième siècle pour obtenir une impression complète

Physical properties of the benchmark models program supercritical wing

The goal of the Benchmark Models Program is to provide data useful in the development and evaluation of aeroelastic computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes. To that end, a series of three similar wing models are being flutter tested in the Langley Transonic Dynamics Tunnel. These models are designed to simultaneously acquire model response data and unsteady surface pressure data during wing flutter conditions. The supercritical wing is the second model of this series. It is a rigid semispan model with a rectangular planform and a NASA SC(2)-0414 supercritical airfoil shape. The supercritical wing model was flutter tested on a flexible mount, called the Pitch and Plunge Apparatus, that provides a well-defined, two-degree-of-freedom dynamic system. The supercritical wing model and associated flutter test apparatus is described and experimentally determined wind-off structural dynamic characteristics of the combined rigid model and flexible mount system are included

COVID-19 in Romania: transnational labour, geopolitics, and the Roma ‘outsiders’

COVID-19 has played out in Romania in a similar way to that in many other European countries. The government implemented decisive early measures which were able to keep the infection and mortality rates relatively low. This paper considers three distinctive aspects of the situation in Romania. First, the situation was complicated by the influence of transnational migrant workers, large numbers of whom returned to Romania when the pandemic started, accounting for distinct geographical variations in the rates of infection. At the same time, large numbers were able to leave the country at the height of the pandemic because they were “needed” for low-paid agricultural/social care work in western European countries. Second, the pandemic placed tension on Romania’s relationship with the EU, whilst highlighting a number of existing issues between Romania and its neighbors. Third, Romania’s strict lockdown measures exacerbated long-standing internal tensions, particularly with regard to the large and marginalized Roma community. The paper concludes by considering some of the possible longer-term implications for Romania of the COVID-19 pandemic

The role of anthropogenic aerosols in the anomalous cooling from 1960 to 1990 in the CMIP6 Earth System Models

The Earth system models (ESMs) that participated in the sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) tend to simulate excessive cooling in surface air temperature (TAS) between 1960 and 1990. The anomalous cooling is pronounced over the Northern Hemisphere (NH) midlatitudes, coinciding with the rapid growth of anthropogenic sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions, the primary precursor of atmospheric sulfate aerosols. Structural uncertainties between ESMs have a larger impact on the anomalous cooling than internal variability. Historical simulations with and without anthropogenic aerosol emissions indicate that the anomalous cooling in the ESMs is attributed to the higher aerosol burden in these models. The aerosol forcing sensitivity, estimated as the outgoing shortwave radiation (OSR) response to aerosol concentration changes, cannot well explain the diversity of pothole cooling (PHC) biases in the ESMs. The relative contributions to aerosol forcing sensitivity from aerosol–radiation interactions (ARIs) and aerosol–cloud interactions (ACIs) can be estimated from CMIP6 simulations. We show that even when the aerosol forcing sensitivity is similar between ESMs, the relative contributions of ARI and ACI may be substantially different. The ACI accounts for between 64 % and 87 % of the aerosol forcing sensitivity in the models and is the main source of the aerosol forcing sensitivity differences between the ESMs. The ACI can be further decomposed into a cloud-amount term (which depends linearly on cloud fraction) and a cloud-albedo term (which is independent of cloud fraction, to the first order), with the cloud-amount term accounting for most of the inter-model differences

Evaluating modelled tropospheric columns of CH4_4 , CO, and O3_3 in the Arctic using ground-based Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) measurements

This study evaluates tropospheric columns of methane, carbon monoxide, and ozone in the Arctic simulated by 11 models. The Arctic is warming at nearly 4 times the global average rate, and with changing emissions in and near the region, it is important to understand Arctic atmospheric composition and how it is changing. Both measurements and modelling of air pollution in the Arctic are difficult, making model validation with local measurements valuable. Evaluations are performed using data from five high-latitude ground-based Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometers in the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). The models were selected as part of the 2021 Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) report on short-lived climate forcers. This work augments the model–measurement comparisons presented in that report by including a new data source: column-integrated FTIR measurements, whose spatial and temporal footprint is more representative of the free troposphere than in situ and satellite measurements. Mixing ratios of trace gases are modelled at 3-hourly intervals by CESM, CMAM, DEHM, EMEP MSC-W, GEM- MACH, GEOS-Chem, MATCH, MATCH-SALSA, MRI-ESM2, UKESM1, and WRF-Chem for the years 2008, 2009, 2014, and 2015. The comparisons focus on the troposphere (0–7 km partial columns) at Eureka, Canada; Thule, Greenland; Ny Ålesund, Norway; Kiruna, Sweden; and Harestua, Norway. Overall, the models are biased low in the tropospheric column, on average by −9.7 % for CH$_4$, −21 % for CO, and −18 % for O$_3$. Results for CH$_4$ are relatively consistent across the 4 years, whereas CO has a maximum negative bias in the spring and minimum in the summer and O$_3$ has a maximum difference centered around the summer. The average differences for the models are within the FTIR uncertainties for approximately 15 % of the model–location comparisons