Athanasios Alexandru Gavrilidis

What is the spatial link between the Roman civilisation and cultural landscape in Romania

Exploring the dimensions of landscape history, particularly those reflected in the present spatial reconfiguration, requires the use of models to facilitate its evaluation. Considering heritage as a contemporary production result, in this paper the traces of Roman colonisation in the landscape are apprehended in regard to the present time. More precisely, we focused on the southern Romanian territory which was located at the periphery of the Roman Empire at the time of its maximum extent. Its peculiarity is that, even though it experienced a rather short organisation under the Roman administration, clear spatial traces emerge in the present cultural landscape. The identification of visible landmarks within the landscape was achieved through a combined framework of ancillary documents, cartographic material and archaeological gazetteer data, in an interdisciplinary attempt to produce a spatial correlation between the historical territorial planning and the present landscape. Thus, the most important results of the study include modelling the spatial pattern of Roman continuity in the present landscape.

Using local knowledge and sustainable transport to promote a greener city: the case of Bucharest, Romania

Abstract Cities undergoing climate change and rapid urbanization are faced with significant transformational processes that affect the environment and society, challenging them to become more sustainable and resilient. The promotion of nature‐based solutions represents an efficient approach to meet sustainability targets in cities and improve the quality of life of citizens. The association of large components of green infrastructure, such as urban parks, with physical activity can counteract the sedentary lifestyle endemic to cities and improve the overall health and well‐being of individuals (Carrus et al., 2013; Scopelliti et al., 2016). By promoting a sustainable means of transport and connecting green spaces within a highly urbanized city, bicycle lanes represent an effective tool for associating physical activity with nature in cities allowing bicycle users to benefit from the positive health effects of nature‐based solutions. Our study focuses on the potential of bicycle lanes to improve functional connectivity among green spaces. We administered 820 questionnaires in 34 green spaces (i.e., urban parks) in Bucharest, Romania, to identify the factors influencing the use of bicycle lanes connecting urban parks and to understand which planning criteria for bicycle lanes are considered as the most important by park visitors. We applied binary and ordinal logistic regressions and found that the factors affecting bicycle lane use are illegally parked cars and lack of accessibility to urban parks. The criteria preferred by park visitors for bicycle lane planning are determined by experience level and frequency of bicycle use. To develop a functional and integrated bicycle lane network that can make cities healthier and more sustainable, policy makers are advised to engage in a public participatory process and focus on the needs of bicycle users. HighlightsBicycle lane use is affected by parked cars and low accessibility to green spaces.Criteria for developing bicycle lanes are determined by user experience and needs.Public participation should play a key role for planning new bicycle lanes connecting green parks.

Empirical analysis and modelling of Argos Doppler location errors in Romania

Advancements in tracking technology allow researchers to understand the spatial ecology of many terrestrial and aquatic species. Argos Doppler is a widely used technology for wildlife telemetry as it suits smaller species and have longer life span than miniaturized GPS. In practice, large Argos location errors often occur due to communication conditions such as transmitters settings, local environment, area of reception, behaviour of tracked individual, etc. Considering the specificity of errors and the lack of benchmark studies in Eastern Europe, our research objectives are (1) to provide empirical evidences of the accuracy of Argos Doppler locations in Romania, (2) investigate the effectiveness of straight forward destructive filters for improving Argos data quality, and (3) to provide guidance for handling Argos wildlife monitoring data to researchers in Eastern Europe. We assessed the errors associated to Argos locations in 4 geographic locations from Romania in static, low speed and high-speed tests and then we evaluated the effectiveness of Douglas Argos distance angle filter algorithm to minimize location errors. Argos locations received in our tests had larger horizontal errors than those indicated by the operator of the Argos system, including when reception conditions are ideal. The errors are highly variable within each location class, however, positions from location class 0 were constantly prone to large errors. The errors were anisotropic, predominantly oriented East and West, a pattern confirmed by the larger longitudinal errors in the vast majority of data. Errors were mostly related to movement speed of Argos transmitter at the time of reception, but other factors such as topographic conditions and position of the device toward the sky at the time of the transmission contribute at receiving low quality data.Douglas-Argos filter successfully excluded largest errors while retained a large amount of data when the threshold was properly defined for local scale (2 km). Thus, filter selection requires previous knowledge about the movement patterns and behaviour of the species of interest, and parametrisation of the selected filter must follow a trial and error approach.

Spatial and Temporal Dynamic of Rural and Urban Landscapes Identified in the “Iron Gates” Natural Park

Abstract In the present paper, we identified landscape typologies in the “Iron Gates” Natural Park from Romania and assessed their dynamic starting with 1990 to 2006. We evaluated the dynamic of landscapes based on land use and land covers changes as extracted from the Corine Land Cover databases. We found no major modifications in the distribution of landscapes, only 4.4% of the study area recording changes. Forestry landscapes have the highest ratio of change (on 1.5% from the total surface of the park), with significant decreases also recorded in landscapes of shrub and rare vegetation, as well as mixed agricultural landscapes. Among the active transformation processes, forestation (on 45% of the modified surface) and agricultural activities (20%) recorded the highest distribution.