Octavian Cocoş

Assessment of Agricultural Land Fragmentation in Romania, A Case Study: Izvoarele Commune, Olt County

Agricultural land fragmentation is a common phenomenon in developing countries in general and for Romanian agriculture in particular. The aim of this study was to analyze the degree of fragmentation of Romania’s agricultural land, which is considered a major obstacle in the development of a modern agriculture. The analysis undertaken has shown that the degree of land fragmentation is high in the study area; the most fragmented are the big farms, while the small ones are more compact. At the same time, due to the scattered distribution of plots and the long distances between holdings, many fields have been turned into fallow land and consequently productivity has dropped. Under the circumstances, half of the owners are against the proposed process of merging plots because they are afraid of losing their properties again, as occurred during the communist regime.

Coping with water scarcity: the case of the Calnistea catchment (Romania)

The Calnistea catchment lies in the southern part of Romania in a region that has been confronted lately with serious water scarcity problems generated primarily by summer heat waves and long periods of drought. The high temperatures, excessive evapotranspiration and scant precipitation have a negative impact on water resources and especially on the river system, which is at the mercy of meteorological conditions, because all the streams in the area originate in the plain. Consequently, mean annual discharges are very low and more often than not, many rivers run dry. In order to avoid such an unwanted phenomenon people have built earth dams across the valleys thus creating chains of ponds, which are used to regulate the flow. Even so, however, most of the years the rivers look like mere threads of water oozing gently through their sediments. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that irrigation systems are missing, which explains the low agricultural productivity. The most important asset of the region is the groundwater, as it represents the only source of drinking water for the population. Groundwaters are stored in superposed aquifers, most of them confined, generally having good hydrogeological properties. Water quality complies with the standards for drinking water and that is why groundwaters are used as such for domestic consumption. The problem is that in the past years, population increase has put more pressure on this resource and consequently water table sank. The growing depletion of groundwaters has brought about thirst, famine, poverty and despair, sad realities that local authorities are striving to control. Given this necessity the present study aims at making several proposals of what could be done on a short and middle term in order to increase the water supplies of the region and thus alleviate the people’s suffering.

Tradition and Modernity in the Romanian Rural Space. Case Study: the Arges Sub-Carpathian Foothills

Abstract This paper intends to demonstrate on the basis of a case study that rural people’s access to modern goods and services is not necessarily a relentless source of deculturalisation, because it sometimes allows a better management and valorisation of the main characteristics of the rural space. Despite socio-economic unrest and successive changes of political regimes that took place in Romania during the last century, the human communities within the Arges foothills have defended with dignity their traditional material and spiritual values, passing them down from generation to generation. In the medium and long-term, the valorisation of the Romanian rural space, in general, and of that belonging to the Arges foothills, in particular, will imply the creation of a balance between the valuable cultural potential and the quality of life of the inhabitants, who are the keepers of rural cultural heritage. At present, the best thing to do to pass on the traditions of this area is to proudly accept the affiliation to this geographical space. This is true not only for the permanent inhabitants of rural settlements, but mostly for those who have left the countryside to carry it in their minds and souls. In our opinion, this fact is a pre-requisite for preventing the loss of material and spiritual values of this cultural-historical space.

The Hutsuls in South Bukovina: from Rural Tradition to Sustainable Development

Abstract The Hutsuls, an ethnic group belonging to the Bukovina’s agro-forestry and pastoral area, still preserve ancient folk traditions which generate friendly practices and attitudes towards the environment. Globalisation and modernisation have brought about changes in the local rural traditions which, on the one hand, threaten their singularity, and on the other hand, set the stage for a new start. The paper aims to analysethe perception of the Bukovina’s communities on the tradition-sustainable development relations considered from a double perspective: the Hutsuls’ traditions and the evolution of the group itself under changes in Romania in the last 25 years. Consequently, our approach has sought to make a correlation between the information collected from the scientific literature, the answers given in a field survey and the opinions expressed in the media concerning this subject. The results of the study have shown that both the occupations and the traditions of the Hutsul ethnics, as well as their spiritual and cultural life, are strongly linked to the natural elements of the environment which the Hutsuls consider to be the basic resources for their existence. However, given that nowadays young people migrate abroad, the community’s perception is indicative of a particular concern to do with the viability of this ethnic group; that is, the human right to turn to modernisation and the efficiency of multicultural policies application in Romania. The study is hence useful from several points of view: it can disseminate information on a national level concerning this little-known ethnicity; it can promote the role of the ethnic groups in reaching the local objectives of sustainable development; and it can supply the authorities with the necessary information for taking the right decissions, be they political, cultural, economic or demographic.

Urbanization effects on the river systems in the Bucharest City region (Romania)

Abstract This article identifies and analyzes the effects of human pressures on the river systems, landscape, flow regime, and water quality in the Bucharest region, the largest urbanized area in Romania. The analyses focused on four streams crossing the Bucharest region, namely the Dâmboviţa, Colentina, Argeş, and Sabar rivers. Our approach relied especially on three types of information: (1) spatial data; (2) hydrological data sets; and (3) water quality data. We made a diachronic analysis of the available maps and ran classic statistical analysis of the data sets, as well as trend analysis. At the same time, we compared the flows in natural (reconstituted) and modified (current) regimes. The results showed that the stream system and its associated landscapes have considerably changed due to several engineering works (reservoirs, dams, channelization works, diversion canals, water intakes, etc.). Under these circumstances, the flow regime suffered changes that differed among the rivers. Thus, the multiannual discharges of the Argeş and Dâmboviţa rivers did not exhibit significant changes, but only mitigated the monthly discharge variability. In the case of Sabar and Colentina, a significant increase of the annual and monthly discharges was identified, due to the water transferred from the neighboring rivers. Water quality worsened, especially on the lower courses of the Dâmboviţa and Argeş rivers, degrading the states and health of the aquatic ecosystems in the study region.