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During the last 30 years, the Romanian economy has faced different challenges due to structural readjustments, overcoming crisis and globalization. The share of primary and secondary sectors in the gross domestic product have strongly decreased, while the services have taken off. The main objective for this study is to observe how these economic readjustments can be assessed and measured using the Corine Land Cover datasets from 1990, 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018 (with special observation on the range 2006 and 2018, after Romania was included in European Union). Despite some of the methodological limitations (like the minimum surface change), the Corine Land Cover turned out to be a powerful tool and it allowed us to detect an intense correlation between the socioeconomic and the structural trends in land use, in specific spatial contexts. The artificial surfaces are constantly increasing and this trend is rather visible as a distance function to the major Romanian cities. The most interesting changes occurred in the case of the agricultural polygons. The main trend emphasized by our analysis regards the redeployment of large farms in areas of agronomic and environmental territorial optimum. Such is the case for vineyards (after a decline during 2000–2006) and for annual cultures. All these changes in land-use patterns are too complex to be encompassed by a single methodology, which is why we used different tools, ranging from spatial analysis to geo-economic modeling, in order to detect how the Corine Land Cover datasets might be used for a better understanding of the Romanian economic readjustments.

Concentration of time (Tc) is a frequently used parameter in the evaluation of the hydrological response of different sizes hydrographic basin in case of rainfall events. The present study is innovative, because it has created an index that identifies the small-sized hydrographic basins that are exposed to the risk of flooding. The Moldavian Plain is an area located in the northeast of Romania where the local population is frequently affected by floods and flash floods caused by heavy rainfall events. The main purpose of the current study is to identify the settlements located in the small-sized hydrographic basins, which are associated with low concentration times and powerful surface runoff. The empirical method was applied in order to calculate the Tc for rainfall water, for each drainage basin, for a time class less than 6 hr. Calculations of the runoff water were also done for a theoretical extreme precipitation event, corresponding to the 1% occurrence probability. A total number of 312 basins were identified that are smaller than 30 km 2 , out of which 112 have Tc of less than 6 hr. These basins, in particular, pose flood risk for 12.4% of the villages and towns in the study area.

The study analyses the spatial and temporal changes occurred in the builtup area of Iași city and its surrounding areas using cartographic materials from different time periods. The paper aims to highlight the areas where the most significant changes took place by identifying the main evolution patterns, generated by certain natural or human-driven factors. The results of the study were achieved by using specific photo-interpretation methods of the available orthophotomaps form 2006 and 2012, mainly using the professional GIS softwares TNT Mips 7.2., ArcGIS 10.2 and Global Mapper 11. The changes have lead on the one hand to the conversion of the former industrial areas and thus, the urban regeneration, but also to the periurbanization phenomenon, with major functional and structural effects.

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The present paper aims to evaluate if the Natura 2000 sites in Romania are placed over dynamic areas from a land cover changes perspective, or if they are placed in areas with low human interest and what the impact of these changes are. The effectiveness of conservation measures was addressed by analyzing the number of land cover changes and their areas in Natura 2000 sites, before and after declaring them as protected areas. Corine Land Cover (CLC) data were used as a tool to identify threats and pressures from each Natura 2000 site, and also assess whether land cover changes are more frequent in sites with a high biodiversity index, compared to those with low diversity, in order to estimate the conservation status. Changes in the land cover during 1990–2018 are characterized by three types of events, from 1990 to 2000 with most changes recorded, followed by a relative period of stability from 2000 to 2012; the most dynamic period is from 2012 to 2018. The main changes are due to deforestation. Only 29.7% ROSCI (Romanian Sites of Community Importance) and 36.5% ROSPA (Romanian Special Protected Areas) sites are characterized by a good degree of conservation without or with low modifications regarding the land cover. The most frequent threats and pressures that were found through CLC changes in the ROSCIs in Romania are related to forestry, grazing, the extent of the urbanized environment and those related to agriculture. The correspondence between Corine Land Cover and Natura 2000 specific threats and pressures emphasizes new guidelines for the Corine Land Cover program; therefore, this correspondence can be a potential tool to get more information for Natura 2000 sites.

The paper aims to mapping the potential vulnerable areas to illegal dumpingof household waste from rural areas in the extra- Carpathian region ofNeamț County. These areas are ordinary in the proximity of built-up areasand buffers areas of 1km were delimited for every locality. Based onvarious map layers in vector formats ( land use, rivers, buil-up areas,roads etc) an assessment method is performed to highlight the potentialareas vulnerable to illegal dumping inside these buffer areas at localscale. The results are corelated to field observations and currentsituation of waste management systems. The maps outline local disparitiesdue to various geographical conditions of county. This approach is anecesary tool in EIA studies particularly for rural waste managementsystems at local and regional scale which are less studied in currentliterature than urban areas.

One of the latest paradigms of today's interdisciplinary studies in geosciences, consists of the implementation of the newest, most accurate, and relevant datasets available, in order to emphasize the appearance, causality or effects of different phenomena, which interfere with humans. Therefore, there is a permanent strive for data, relevant in geographical analysis, which is highly accurate, and also cost-effective. Due to the recent developments in UAV technology, and lowering of production costs, drones have been integrated into methodological workflows all around the world, in numerous fields, ranging from habitat delineation, to geomorphologic mapping. Most such studies use either a digital surface model (DSM) or ortophoto imagery generated from drone aerial images. Also, Structure From Motion algorithms (SFM) have been highly developed recently, into detecting ever more complicated shapes and objects. This means that the drone has turned into an indispensable tool for generating base layers used in any GIS-based study, because it generates fast, high accuracy, repeatable, on demand data sets. This paper intends to reveal a methodological approach towards generating the two, most important raster layers for the majority of spatial analyses: the digital surface model/digital elevation model, and the ortophoto, respectively.