Ioan Oroian

Evolution of Water Quality in Romania

Globally, water is a renewable natural resource, but vulnerable and limited, so it must be treated as a natural heritage to be protected and defended. In our century, one of the largest global problems concerning water management, taking into account that the population of the planet is in continuous growing, is the crisis of drinking water. The structure of water resources is mainly represented by freshwater, which is a rather small percentage of total water on the planet, namely 2.5%, while the percentage of 70% constitutes the water on the surface of the Earth. The fresh water is directly accessible by springs, rivers, lakes, and ground water, the rest being found in glacial ice. It means that only 0.7% of the planets water is available, as a source of survival for the current population (Dodds, 2002; http://www.anpm.ro/ Mediu/rapoarte, accessed 2011).

Plant irradiation device in microwave field with controlled environment

We examined the plant growing process under low power microwaves irradiation.Our patented device consists in anechoic chambers with precise environment control.The microwave irradiation had significant effects on P. vulgaris L. seeds germination. Plant irradiation during the germination period, by using environmental low level microwave radiation (known as electrosmog) alters the plant germination and the growing process. In order to analyze if such a subtle effect is generated only by the microwave irradiation, the environmental parameters (light, temperature, and humidity) must be kept identical for the reference and the irradiated lot. This is a difficult task because the humidity and temperature are interrelated. In order to study the plant behavior under microwaves low power irradiation, the paper describes the design, manufacturing and operating process and device performances on plant growth. To this end, a low power microwave field (average microwaves power density of 3.8mW/m2) under controlled environmental parameters is used. The device consists of a reference chamber (R) and a microwave irradiation chamber (I), of 0.5m3 volume each one, equipped with access doors. The irradiation chamber ensures microwave field distribution with programmable power, frequency and bandwidth in the most commonly used standards for network communication such as: Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM900/1800), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), the third generation of mobile telecommunications technology (3G) or 2.4/5GHz Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). Both chambers provide a radiofrequency (RF) shielding (at least -60dB) against and toward outside, so the electrosmog is shielded and does not interfere with the inner environment. Both chambers are equipped with performing temperature/humidity sensors and controlled LED lighting system (maximum 400µmolcm-2s-1) with a uniformity of ?5µmolcm-2s-1 measured at the bottom level of the chamber. An embedded system (microcontroller) measures the temperature and humidity and proceeds continuously to match the humidity into the chambers pair with less than ?1.5% relative humidity (RH) difference, by using a low flux exhaust ventilation process through a simple innovative method. The accuracy of the temperature measurement is better than ?0.2?C. Humidity and temperature data set are logged (with programmable acquisition rate) during the whole experiment and can be read later by a personal computer. To identify the influence of microwave treatment on bean seeds and plants development, three growing experiments were settled, based on 122 bean seeds each. The number of germinated seeds (determined each day during 8days of experiment), the germination energy (GE %) of the seeds, the length of stems (SL) and roots (RL), the germination (G) %, the seedling vigor index (SVI) and dry matter content (DM%) have been measured and computed. The obtained data showed significant increase for all parameters on microwave irradiation condition.

CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE REGULATION OF THE PLANT PROTECTION AND OF THE PHYTOSANITARY QUARANTINE IN THE EU MEMBER STATES

The legislation, by means of its institutions may and must be put in the service of the interests related to the protection of plants, of water and land ecosystems. The national legislation which has implicitly become European legislation harmonized with the international one, focuses on the protection of the natural environment and of the one created by man, the protection of life on Earth. Within this large context, the intervention of the law maker in most countries is directed with realism toward the new and ever changing challenges in this domain, thus giving birth to a set of State bodies, as well as non-governmental bodies, which are charged with the protection of plants, of humans and of life against the harmful influences of pollution of any kinds.