Applying a Complex Integrated Method for Mapping and Assessment of the Degraded Ecosystem Hotspots from Romania

Sorin Avram, Irina Ontel, Carmen Gheorghe, Steliana Rodino and Sanda Roșca
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Sorin Avram: National Institute for Economic Research “Costin C. Kiriţescu” (INCE), Romanian Academy, 13 September Street No. 13, 050711 Bucharest, Romania
Irina Ontel: Remote Sensing and Satellite Meteorology Laboratory, National Meteorological Administration, 013686 Bucharest, Romania
Carmen Gheorghe: National Institute for Economic Research “Costin C. Kiriţescu” (INCE), Romanian Academy, 13 September Street No. 13, 050711 Bucharest, Romania
Steliana Rodino: National Institute of Research and Development for Biological Sciences, Spl. Independentei No. 296, 060031 Bucharest, Romania
Sanda Roșca: Faculty of Geography, Babes-Bolyai University, 400006 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-23

Abstract: To meet the global challenges of climate change and human activity pressure on biodiversity conservation, it has become vital to map such pressure hotspots. Large areas, such as nation-wide regions, are difficult to map from the point of view of the resources needed for such mapping (human resources, hard and soft resources). European biodiversity policies have focused on restoring degraded ecosystems by at least 10% by 2020, and new policies aim to restore up to 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030. In this study, methods developed and applied for the assessment of the degradation state of the ecosystems in a semi-automatic manner for the entire Romanian territory (238,391 km 2 ) are presented. The following ecosystems were analyzed: forestry, grassland, rivers, lakes, caves and coastal areas. The information and data covering all the ecoregions of the Romania (~110,000 km 2 ) were analyzed and processed, based on GIS and remote sensing techniques. The largest degraded areas were identified within the coastal area (49.80%), grassland ecosystems (38.59%) and the cave ecosystems (2.66%), while 27.64% of rivers ecosystems were degraded, followed by 8.52% of forest ecosystems, and 14.05% of lakes ecosystems. This analysis can contribute to better definition of the locations of the most affected areas, which will yield a useful spatial representation for future ecological reconstruction strategy.

Keywords: degraded ecosystems; terrestrial ecosystems; freshwater ecosystems; marine ecosystems; Romania (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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