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Countries in transition to a market economy exhibit increased regional disparities, leading to differences in the standard of life and in the chances of the population to benefit from the radical socio-economic and political changes. Our aim in this article is to find an index other than the gross domestic product, and maybe a synthetic one, capable of measuring territorial imbalances. In search of such an index, we considered 17 indicators to be relevant and applied these to the 41 Romanian counties. The results indicate that territorial disparities in a transition country with a large rural population can be measured by an aggregate index essentially formed by the gross domestic product, the number of inhabitants per room, and the rate of school dropouts.

Coastal areas are very important due to the ecosystem services provided to the inhabitants. However, these advantages have resulted into an increasing attraction, especially in the recent centuries. The human pressure determined numerous impacts on the ecosystems and ultimately on the safety and welfare of the coastal inhabitants, aggravated by the consequences of the global changes. The present study aims to explore two particular impacts, erosion and accretion, based on statistical data and unpublished studies, in an effort to increase the awareness towards the fact that the issue has a global extent. In addition, possible solutions are examined. The results indicate that erosion and accretion are present in all the three countries examined, and their extent tends to increase. Our findings suggest a need to act urgently; the phenomena need to be stopped first using engineering solutions, but a careful planning is needed in the long run, especially through restrictions meant to stop the "derogatory planning". Last but not least, the conservation of fragile ecosystems by including them in natural protected areas is a possible solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning for post-disaster accessibility is essential in providing emergency and other services to protect life and property in the impacted areas in the aftermath of such events. Careful planning is especially critical in congested historic districts where narrow streets and at-risk structures are more common or prevail. One of the more common methods of measuring accessibility, the use of isochrones, may be particularly inappropriate in congested historic areas. Bucharest, Romania, is a city with such an older historic core of buildings and narrower streets. Furthermore, Bucharest ranks behind only Istanbul among large European cities in terms of seismic risk. The city experienced earthquakes of magnitude greater than 7.0 in 1940 and 1970. Both earthquakes had their epicenter in the Vrancea Mountains of central Romania and less than 200 kilometers from Bucharest. With a relative periodicity of 45 to 50 years for earthquakes of such magnitude, there is a clear need for earthquake hazard planning that incorporates comprehensive hazard awareness, including an improved understanding of and mapping for accessibility, particularly in areas with greater potential for building collapse. This paper provides an examination of simulated accessibility for central Bucharest through the use of mapping and GIS technologies. The finding is that accessibility will be substantially compromised by anticipated building collapse. Therefore, policy makers and planners need to more fully understand and appreciate the serious implications of this compromised accessibility in planning for emergency services and disaster recovery activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims at validating a new type of social resilience analysis focused on the interaction of each social and economic component within the social-economic system. We have decided to divide the two general components, namely social and economic, analyze them in their interaction, social resilience meaning social adaptation to the economic dynamics. How do decision-makers act within the system seems, at first glance, coherent and self-evident: the social component targeting a higher living standard and the economic component trying to maximize its profit. But the socialeconomic system is a complex one, involving underlying relationships between the two components, interactions being difficult to determine. In order to emphasize the links between the social and the economic component we shall resort to the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the Hierarchical Ascendent Classification (HAC). HAC starts from spatial units, from similarities in the profiles of regions (counties or development regions) seen apriori as groups of variables, while PCA considers each variable distribution and compares it to each other. The data used are grouped by 23 variables: 10 social variables - the resident population, urban population, settling of domicile, departures from the domicile, net settling of domicile, settling of residence, departures from the residence, net settling of residence, emigrants, immigrants; 12 economic variables - employment by national economic activities(agriculture, industry, construction, and trade), economically active population by national economic activities (agriculture, industry, construction, and trade) and the average monthly salary by national economic activities (agriculture, industry, construction, and trade); 1 independent variable - the unemployment rate. The analysis is focused on two territorial levels in Romania: county and development region, over the 1991-2012 period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relevance of spatial complexity concept, especially looking to the dynamics, applied to the disadvantaged socio-economic areas. Relations between different territorial sub-systems have a strong spatial component. Socio-economic sub-systems are connected and interrelated causally but this trend accumulates differentiated increases that are transmitted to spatial complexity. Spatial complexity is not synonymous with economic development unless specialization is achieved only in the primary sector. On the other hand, forced diversification of economic activities achieved by a centralized political system is not a way out of the vicious circle of underdevelopment. Using some relevant variables to measure the socio-economic territorial discrepancies, were delineated the disadvantaged areas. The deep analysis it was made on three selected socio-economic areas, located in different geographical contexts. Dynamics of spatial complexity of rural areas is a relative one, contradictory, with reducing trends of. These tendencies are defined by a subsistence dominant agriculture, accompanied by an incipient services sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to identify certain environmental imbalances triggered by the new emerging structures and to highlight some effects on sustainable development for the metropolitan area of Bucharest. The morphogenesis of these imbalances is based primarly on the restructuring process experienced by the city in the transition process from planned to market economy and secondly, on the result of interaction between it and the new structures appearing due to uncontrolled urban and suburban development. The 15 new emerging structures, individualized for the first time on a uniform methodology, create a constant pressure on the natural environment. This pressure cumulates with the one developed by the city itself, both being evaluated through field research, interviews and through data and information analysis gathered from diferrent institutions and enteprises. All this have emphasized the alteration degree for some natural environmental components along the main access roads, and also between the new emerging structures. Statistical data related to water and air pollution have been provided mainly by the environmental agencies. Information from 30 interviews regarding the decision makers in sustainable urban development have enabled the creation of a pattern for environmental risks in new emerging structures of the metropolitan area of Bucharest. By taking into consideration the regional functions for emerging structures, which are seen as growth poles, this model can be a starting point for a sustainable development approach along with a spatial vision on polycentrism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of collaborative management is considered to be one of the most efficient instruments for sustainable development of some areas, which are under anthropic pressure due to the production of solid waste. The paper stands for the necessity of promoting a collaborative management among the main actors involved in an efficient and sustainable urban solid waste management, in the metropolitan area of Bucharest. The present management is mainly based on the strictly economic vision of managing solid waste. The study is based on data from the County Council Ilfov, the city Hall of Bucharest, the interviews and questionnaires answered by population and to some institutional and economical actors involved in solid waste management, as well as from field researches. The gradual closure of 29 non-complying landfills increases the pressure upon the three large compliant landfills organized in the metropolitan area: Chiajna-Rudeni, Glina and Vidra. The limited vision of local and national decision factors regarding the externalization of the management of the solid waste disposals to a company, without their ample involvement, including the population's education and the participation of NGOs, endanger the perspective of a sustainable development of a very disturbed area aider the year 1990. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a country with a relatively small area, Romania has a variety of natural resources, which in time were favourable prerequisites to the development of processing activities. Most of these resources are not able to provide entirely the requisite, but cover parts of it in certain proportions. The territorial distribution of natural resources and the different cultural influences have fostered the development of certain regions or industrial centres of the country. The dynamics of the industrial exploitation of these centres has grown continuously, reaching a paroxysm in the centralised regime, when some of the resources have been largely exhausted. Rapid and often risky industrialisation, relying mainly on the basis of propaganda and not of economic efficiency has led to a falsely balanced development. New industrial structure, both territorial as well as sectorial has proven ineffective in the very first year of transition from the centralised system to the market economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the spatial dimension of urban (urbanization, deurbanization, urban restructuring etc.) and industrial (exploitation of natural resources) processes, Coordination of Information on the Environment Programme (CORINE) data provide an image of land cover/use dynamics in territorial statistical units - administrative units and development regions. This study employed ordinary kriging interpolation to depict how these processes are reflected at macro-scale changes in land cover and use. Results indicate that areas affected by any kind of land cover changes predominate in the South-West Region (especially Mehedinţi and Gorj counties), while areas affected by land use changes in the urban areas concentrate in the Oriental Carpathians (counties Suceava, Harghita, Covasna, Bacău, and Neamţ). Urbanization seems to cluster in the South-East, but also in spaces situated at the limits of the development regions South-East, Center, North-East, and North West. Deurbanization explains land use changes in the South- West and West Regions. The results indicate that anthropic pressures on natural systems are the driving force of environmental dynamics. Methodologically, the study underlines the potential of using kriging to assess environmental changes and their consequences over land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]