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Volume X |

Indicators of the Human Pressure on the Environment in the Bălăciţa Piedmont

Abstract: The Bălăciţa Piedmont represents the western subdivision of the Getic Piedmont, being located in south-western Romania. The unit under study is an early inhabited space and, at the same time, an area of active development of numerous geodynamic phenomena. The man-induced changes had significant influences upon the environment and especially upon the relief, the increased vulnerability of the terrains to the dangerous geomorphologic phenomena being one of the most important problems that the local communities have to face nowadays. The present study aims to assess the human influence upon the emergence of environmental unbalances and especially the human actions that influence the risk geomorphologic processes. A relevant means in the process of evaluating the type and dimension of the human intervention within a given territorial unit concerns the computation of certain synthetic indicators that characterize the degree of landscape transformation. The assessment has been realized through the analysis of statistical data at the level of the administrative-territorial units that overlap the Bălăciţa Piedmont. The general research regards an interval of thirty years (1977 – 2007), while the focus was laid upon the transition period (1992, 2002, and 2007).

Volume IX |

The Analysis of the Relief Fragmentation Features within the Bălăciţa Piedmont

Abstract: Within the Bălăciţa Piedmont there are to be distinguished two areas with specific features, which correspond to the Danube catchment and to the Jiu drainage area. Both in the case of the drainage density, as well as in that of the relief energy, the distribution of the value classes correlated with the two catchments underlines major differences, but also certain resemblances, situation which is explained by the evolution time, the base level, the flow direction in relation with the structure and the lithological and climatic homogeneity. The analysis of the data enabled the quantification of the relief energy and of the drainage density within the Bălăciţa Piedmont, as well as the correlation of the two parameters in report to the main catchments. The computation and representation methods for the two indicators of the relief fragmentation (i.e. the depth and the density) allowed for a quantitative interpretation (the identification of five value classes), as well as for a spatial interpretation (the grouping of the values depending on the two collecting rivers: the Danube and the Jiu). The aggregation of the influence factors on the two main drainage areas is mostly due to the fact that the Danube catchment extended its area in the detriment of the Jiu catchment, the three more important tributaries (the Blahniţa, the Drincea and the Desnăţui) catching sectors within the upper course of the tributaries of the Jiu. The analysis of the relief fragmentation within the Bălăciţa Piedmont shows that this unit is on different evolution stages. The complexity of the fragmentation is closely connected to the maturity degree of the valleys and to the morphogenetic complexes imposed by the paleogeographical evolution.