Assessing the potential distribution of invasive alien species Amorpha fruticosa (Mill.) in the Mureş Floodplain Natural Park (Romania) using GIS and logistic regression

The assessment of invasive terrestrial plant species in the Romanian protected areas is an important research direction, especially since the adventive species have become biological hazards with significant impacts on biodiversity. Due to limited resources being available for the control of the invasive plants, the modelling of the spatial potential distribution is particularly useful in order to find the best measures to eliminate them or prevent their introduction and spread, as well as including them in the management plans of protected areas. Thus, the present paper aims to assess one of the most disturbing invasive terrestrial plant species in Europe – A. fruticosa in one of the most important natural protected area in Romania, i.e. Mureş Floodplain Natural Park (V IUCN category and RAMSAR –Wetlands of International Importance). The current study is a geographical approach seeking to explain the spatial relationships between this invasive species and several explanatory factors (soil type, depth to water, vegetation cover, forest fragmentation and distance to near waters, roads and settlements) and to assess its potential distribution by integrating GIS and logistic regression into spatial simulation. The resultant probability map can be used by the park’s administration in implementing the Management Plan in terms of identifying the areas with the highest occurrence potential of A. fruticosa according to the primary habitats and ecosystems and setting up actions for its eradication/limitation

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE TIMBERLINE IN THE RODNA MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK

In den Rumänischen Karpaten, verzeichnet die obere Waldgrenze beträchtliche Variationen. Dies verdankt sich sowohl den natürlichenFaktoren (klimatische Bedingungen, Höhe und geographische Breite wo die Gebirge liegen, Reliefgestaltung, geomorphologische Besonderheiten usw.) als auch dem menschlichen Einfluss. In den Rodna-Gebirgen, widerspiegelt sich der menschliche Eingriff heutzutage, mit dem Wunsch die Weidenflächen, als auch jene fürdie Ausbeutung der Wälder in der Nähe deren Grenze, auszuweiten, in der viel niedrigeren oberen Waldgrenze im Vergleich zu jener natürlichen, insbesondere in den am meisten zugänglichen Orten. Die Höhenabweichung der oberen Waldgrenze ist im Durchschnitt bei 200–300 m eingeschätzt, mit höheren Werten auf den südlichen Hängen, wo, in manchen Stellen, die obere Waldgrenze durch den menschlichen Eingriff auch bis zu 1 200–1 300 m hinabgestiegen ist

USING MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSIONS TO DERIVE CROPLAND AND PASTURE PROPORTION MAPS IN ROMANIA

The spatial pattern of agricultural lands is an important part of the assessments regarding land management and its societal consequences, especially when considering the increasing demand for food and stronger environmental change impacts. As a subsequence, integrative studies based on complex spatial models simulating biogeochemical and physical processes that estimate yield gaps, crops efficiency or agricultural water resources use are relevant for providing trustful information required by stakeholders from different governance levels, and whose interests center on land use and its societal implications. The present paper is about the creation of a dataset representing the distribution of cropland and pasture proportions at 1 km resolution grid cell in Romania, around the year 2012. The geospatial dataset was developed by fusing the statistical agricultural data provided by the TEMPO Online Service of the National Institute of Statistics with the CORINE 2006 Land Use / Land Cover geospatial data. The two input datasets were linked through multiple linear regressions using a backward selection method. In this way, the statistical proportion of croplands and pastures of each Local Administrative Units (LAU2) is explained by all significant CORINE Land Use / Land Cover classes. The results show a high agreement between the observed proportions and the linear models’ estimates, particularly in the case of croplands (i.e. 94% of the proportions are correctly estimated) as well as for pastures (i.e. 84% of the observed values). Moreover, the graphical representation of the difference between the estimated values and the observed proportions, at LAU2 level, shows that such differences, either overestimated or underestimated, are below 10 percentage points in most of the cases. The newly developed geospatial dataset could be particularly useful as an input dataset for integrative models of atmosphere-plantsoil processes simulation as well as for a wide range of specific topic-oriented syntheses and assessments on agricultural land use issues

Invasive terrestrial plant species in the Romanian protected areas. A review of the geographical aspects

Geographical factors play an essential role in the occurrence and spread of invasive species worldwide, and their particular analysis at regional and local scales becomes important in understanding species development patterns. The present paper discusses the relationships between some key geographical factors and the Invasive Terrestrial Plant Species (ITPS) distribution, and their environmental implications in a few protected areas in Romania. The authors focused their attention on three of the foremost invaders (i.e. Amorpha fruticosa, Ailanthus altissima and Fallopia japonica) making use of the information provided by the scientific literature and some illustrative examples developed in the framework of the FP7 enviroGRIDS project. The study is aimed to increase the knowledge of the ITPS and, specifically, to contribute to the geographical understanding of the role played by the driving factors in their distribution and spread in various habitats and ecosystems. The results will further support the control efforts in protected areas where, often, valuable native species are at risk of being replaced by non-native species

MULTIPLE CLIMATE HAZARDS WITH IMPACT ON TRANSPORT SYSTEMS IN DOLJ COUNTY, ROMANIA

Fog, glazed frost, hail, blizzards, snow cover and strong winds are recognized as some of the most representative climate hazards impacting transport systems. The authors computed several climate indicators based on their cumulated frequency (average annual number of days) in order to highlight the most significant hazardous phenomena using the climate database (1961-2010) of the most relevant weather stations in Dolj County and its surroundings. The indicators were computed and integrated in GIS using spatial analysis techniques resulting the regionalization of extreme weather phenomena. Also, ranking the analysed phenomena according to their importance in impacting the transport systems, a multiple climate hazard (MCH) map have resulted. The derived values were classified into three intervals corresponding to three intensity classes: high, medium and low. In order to spatially quantify the MCH, the share of each intensity class at administrative-territorial units (LAU2) was calculated