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Environment

Volume XV |

Derivation of ecological indicators for assessing landscape health and habitat disturbance in Lower Barpani watershed of Assam (India)

Abstract: Landscape health is a primary concern for management of resources and restoration of habitats of various fauna and avifauna in watershed. We derived landscape health index using Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite data of 1987 and 2011. Standard precipitation index, normalized difference water index, normalized difference moisture index, normalized difference barren land index, normalized difference vegetation index, human disturbance, height, slope, land use/ land cover were integrated to assess landscape health and habitat disturbance in Lower Barpani watershed in India. Landscape health was categorized into five groups, i.e. very good, good, moderate, poor and very poor. Spatial-temporal variation of landscape health revealed that the area under very good health has degraded from 45% in 1987 to only 1% registering a decrease of 97.26%. The area under good, moderate, poor and very poor categories of landscape health experienced positive change. Habitat disturbance in forests and wetlands has also increased due to shifting agriculture, deforestation and cultivation in wetlands. Remotely sensed indices of landscape health and habitat disturbance can effectively be utilized for prioritizing ecological restoration across space at various scales.

Volume XIV |

The Human Pressure on the Environment Quality Through Land Use in Northern Side of the Someșean Plateau – Romania

Abstract: The analysed rural area has encountered, over the years, a series of economic, demographic and especially ecological changes, driven by the development of the society. Most of these changes had negative effects upon the environment. Human activities have also determined positive and negative topographic changes on the environment. The economic activities taking place in this rural area suffer from a lack of diversity and focus only on the usage of local resources, mainly agricultural and forestry. This is the main reason that caused the increase of the human impact upon the landscape and its components.The current state of the quality of the environment and the changes it has suffered should have a significant importance for the rural community, so that one may issue some measures for protecting the ecosystems, for a sustainable development process to take place. The present study analyses the main human activities from the northern part of the Someșean Plateau in order to draw attention to the impact of human pressure on the quality of the environment.

Volume XIV |

Biourbanism – a solution for mitigation of urban climate. Case study Bucharest city

Abstract: As a living environment or biotope of the human species, urban structures must meet not only the economic, social and political rights of the people, but also their biological and neurophysiologic requirements. A new scientific approach to urban planning is biourbanism or organic urbanism, which considers the urban environment as being a hyper-complex living thing. From the scientific point of view, this approach opens the way to new scenarios for urban planning research. The aim of the study is to promote this modern concept of urban planning for Bucharest City in the context of its climate vulnerability. The objectives of our investigation are the following: analyzing the dynamic of climate conditions of the city, highlighting the weather risks for the population and devising scenarios for implementing the concept in Bucharest. The research methodology focused on the following: the discussion of conceptual framework based on specialty literature, the calculation of bioclimatic indices in order to assess the city’s vulnerability to climate conditions and the presentation of “biourban” improvement models applicable to urban fabric samples. The study reveals the vulnerability of Bucharest City in relation to the specific risks associated to the weather phenomena of the summer season (high temperatures and moisture deficit), as argument in favour of preparing implementation scenarios for biourbanism ideas.

Volume XIV |

Considerations on the influence of micro urban heat islands to the temperature – humidity index in Craiova

Abstract: According to National Administration of Meteorology, July month of 2015, will represent one of the longest periods with canicular temperatures in the last decades. In Oltenia region and in Craiova city, too, yellow or orange code warning, had to be declared. To determine thermal discomfort sensation felt by the population of Craiova, experimental research concerning micrometeorological measurements of the real temperature and relative humidity that contribute to the local Temperature – Humidity Index (THI) value was performed. According to the experimental research results, con-firmed by using thermovision too, within Craiova, four micro urban heat islands were identified. Despite the low mean value of relative humidity, due to the temperature’s high mean value, in these hot spots the THI average was 94.93, and the thermal discomfort sensation would have made necessary special protection measures. The same air micrometeorological parameters in these four hot spots were compared with the ones recorded in English Park where due to vegetation and trees’ shadow, the THI average was 84.87, thus the thermal discomfort sensation would have made necessary adequate protection measures. The paper proposes several practical methods that would be utilized in order to decrease the pavements’ and buildings’ walls temperatures, or to increase the vegetation surfaces that contribute to the THI de-creasing in the micro urban heat islands of Craiova city.

Volume XIV |

Change of land-use patterns in a suburbanized area: The Bucharest municipality as case study

Abstract: There were realized numerous geographical, sociological and economic studies with special regard to land use change on the territories around Bucharest Municipality. Our paper is focused on the dynamics of the spatial patterns of land use types in the post-socialist period at the level of first tier of administrative-territorial units (towns and rural communes). The boundaries of the study area were defined from the viewpoint of the rural-urban fringe approach. We applied methods of multivariate statistics and hierarchical agglomerative clustering in order to identify changes in the distribution and use of land resources. Our findings confirm previous achievements about uneven development of the Bucharest’s outskirts and provide more details with regard to changing land use patterns. Thus, we identified and confirmed the opposition between north and south, different spatial patterns of land use distribution between internal and external periphery of the study area. We believe that reducing these differences through a balanced economic development policy would generate development opportunities for both the capital city and settlements in its suburban area. In order to obtain better results, each of the resulted land use cluster requires tailoring of the general economic development policy to its specific needs.