Changes in the forest ecosystems in areas impacted by aridization in south-western Romania

Journal of Environmental Health Science Engineering

Daniel Peptenatu¹  Igor Sîrodoev²  Remus Pravalie³ 

[1] Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Research on Territorial Dynamics, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania;Moldavian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova;Faculty of Geography, Bucharest University, Bucharest, Romania

关键词: South-Western Romania;    Aridity;    Deforestation;    Degradation;   

Others  :  811132
DOI  :  10.1186/2052-336X-12-2

 received in 2013-07-28, accepted in 2013-10-08,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

In the past few decades, global climate change has accentuated the intensification of aridization in South-Western Romania, with direct and indirect consequences on the quality of forest ecosystems. In addition to qualitative deterioration, the quantitative changes brought about by intensive anthropic deforestation have created the conditions for a decline in the size of forest areas on vast tracts of land. The paper aims to analyze the qualitative and quantitative changes in the forest ecosystems in South-Western Romania, changes due to the synergic context of the global climate changes and the anthropic pressures of the past three decades. In order to capture the evolution of aridization in the study area, specific aridization indexes have been calculated, such as the De Martonne index and the UNEP aridity index. 1990 and 2011 satellite images have been used in order to quantify the qualitative changes.

Results

The results obtained indicated that, in the past two decades, the quality of the biomass declined as a result of the increase in the climatic aridity conditions (De Martonne si UNEP aridity index, indicating in the last decades, annual values under 15 mm/°C, and under 0.5 mm/mm, that means that the values situated under these thresholds, describe arid and semi-arid climate conditions). Also, the uncontrolled logging across vast surfaces caused the loss of forest ecosystems by 7% in the overall study area, during the last three decades.

Conclusions

The severe effects of aridization meant, first of all, a significant decline in the quality of the ecosystem services supplied by forests. In the absence of viable actions to correct the present situation, the extremely undesirable consequences of an ecological and social nature will arise in the near future.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Pravalie et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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