Agritourism is a complex activity, a chance maybe today to ensure both human health and the “health” of the environment and rural settlements in order to achieve a most wanted desideratum, the sustainability of the rural environment. The idea of this paper starts from the trend of the current period, meaning the strong emphasis on natural, organic, bio, in all human activities, health and environment, in a word, sustainability. The necessity of implementing the sustainability of activities, health and environment in rural areas, taking into account the agritourism field, was a subject pursued in the study, taking as area of study the mountainous rural environment, the reason of this choice deriving from the fact that the mountain area offers great opportunities for agritourism development, the practice of which is even necessary in the current period. The sustainability of agritourism on rural health and environment cannot be dissociated from the economic, social and cultural life of the community in which it manifests itself, and has a multiplier effect on all the domains with which it interacts. So the purpose of the paper is to follow the development of the agritourism field and, based on some present information, to make a future forecast for some specific indicators, to highlight the representative aspects related to the development and capitalization of guesthouses from a rural mountain environment through agritourism and to come up with a forecast for future transformations that need to take place in the studied area in order to support the sustainable development of the human environment through agritourism.

The popularity of rural areas and especially the mountainous ones, as a possibility to spend the vacation has increased in most countries. Almost all mountain areas can provide great opportunities for the development of various forms of rural tourism, there being many examples according to which many mountain areas, through appropriate and effective strategies of capitalizing the resources through the forms of rural tourism, start from the pioneer stage to a real valuable alternative in socio-economic terms for the rural area. One of the concepts that are increasingly used is the "tourist village", its main issue, consisting in the return of the investment, an aspect that we will discuss in this paper. The paper presents an analysis of the way in which the occupancy degree affects the period of amortization of the initial investment. Concretely, in the case of the medium-sized tourist village, the minimum occupancy degree for the amortization of the initial investment, starts from about 25% for the investment without a loan, but subsidy in proportion of 50% and reaches at about 85% in the case of an investment with loan, for a period of 10 years, without advance or subsidy and with an interest of 7%. Initial investments were established for a holiday village in the Romanian countryside.Sustainability 2017, 9, 875 2 of 18 required by the city dwellers and tourists; travel of 30-50 km from the cities become competitive with long-distance journeys abroad; and most city dwellers prefer to spend leisure and weekend days in a quiet, green and clean environment.Rural tourism can be a source of income for the rural population. The traditional products and resources that can be capitalized through this form of tourism are: traditional architecture, traditional objects, folk costumes, folk sculpture, traditional folk instruments, folklore manifestations, various traditional gastronomic, and eco-friendly products; in other words, the specific rural way of life, with multiple benefits for all participants to this activity. In order for rural tourism to have a high value, it is necessary that the economic value of adjacent activities to take place at a high level, so for this reason a rural tourist village could help.The aim of the paper. The idea of this paper starts from the existence of numerous locations with tourism potential. Many of these locations can be found in the countryside, so the idea of rural tourism is brought to the fore. In other words, the aim is to combine local economic interests, the development of communities, with those aiming at the conservation of tourism resources. The motivation for choosing a tourist village is that it could be the center of generating profit when it "sells" rooms at a higher price than operating costs. The purpose of the paper is to highlight and study the concrete situation regarding the investments in developing a holiday village that contains 20 rooms, possibly located in Apuseni Mountains. The research objective is a tourist village built from scratch, so the purpose of the ...

Sustainable development involves economic growth in line with the requirements of ecological balance and human development, involving people’s relations with the environment as well as the responsibility of the current generation over future generations. Sustainable tourism was designed and supported in an attempt to manage all resources, so that the economic, social, and aesthetic needs of an area are satisfied while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity, and life support systems. Sustainable tourism is not “a fashion”; it is a way of thinking and acting with long-term implications. At national level, we believe that Maramureş County, Romania, is one of the most gifted natural and socio-economic geographic areas in the Oriental Carpathians of Romania, in which the conditions of sustainable tourism can be met and supported long term. The purpose of this scientific paper is to identify, synthesize, process, and interpret data about the tourist qualification of some localities in the protected areas of Maramureş, so as to inform local decision-makers and tourists about tourism forms currently practiced (and) possibly practicable in the future, because since tourism, as an economic branch, leads to the growth of jobs, it can contribute to the sustainable development of the area. The mathematical model proposed in the paper allows the grouping of available resources from 25 settlements in order to establish the types of tourism that can be supported and developed in these localities.

Global warming is an unanimously accepted phenomenon by the international scientific community, being already highlighted by the analysis of observational data over long periods of time, with an increase in temperature of over 1 °C. Climate change in Romania is part of the global context, taking into account the regional conditions, with an increasing trend of arid summer. While the link between high temperatures, climate change and rainfall has been modeled in detail, the situation is not the same for plant water accessibility. The period of time between 1898 and the present, corresponding to the annual records of precipitation and evapotranspiration, overlapped with important political and administrative changes in the studied area, and with extensive hydro-amelioration works. The aim of the paper is to statistically follow the evolution over time of precipitation, namely of evapotranspiration measured in Western Romania, which would allow the expression of conclusions regarding the improvement directions of the water regime. In order to follow the evolution in time of these data, the interval of 1898–2019 was divided into three periods: 1898–1950, 1951–1989 and 1990–2019, respectively. The increase in temperature, especially during the vegetation period and the large number of years in which evapotranspiration quantitatively exceeds the precipitation, indicating the need for effective measures to regulate the water balance.

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Rationale: Water loss by evaporation is a normal physiological process, in order to regulate plant temperature. Under conditions of thermal and water stress, water loss is accelerated compared to normal conditions, and the response of plants is variable. In extreme cases, it can lead to wilting and death of plants. It was found that the phenomenon of water loss behaved as a pattern in different plant species, given by two functions, logistics (first part of water loss) and hyperbola (second part of water loss) in relation to a moment m, at which the rate of water loss (RWL) has reached its maximum value. Method: We studied the water loss process for a series of plant samples on different plant species (Picea abies L., H. Karst; Juniperus communis L.; Pinus silvestris L.; Thuja occidentalis L.; Lamium purpureum L.; Veronica hederifolia L.), measuring the rate of weight loss (RWL) in controlled conditions. The drying of the samples was done in identical conditions (thermo-balance, 100 °C, standard temperature for drying the plant samples) with the real-time recording of the drying time simultaneously with the water loss rate (RWL) from the plant samples. The exposure time varied, depending on each species sample, and was approximately 1000 s. Results: The experimental data was recorded at intervals of every 10 s, during the entire drying period. RWL values varied from 0.024 to 0.054 g/min at the beginning of the drying process and reached maximum values after 70–100 s, having values between 0.258 g/min and 0.498 g/min. During the drying period, this indicator presented different graphic evolutions, difficult to be described with a single function. The first segment was described by a logistic function, and the second was described by a hyperbola, resulting in a model (RWLMod) which described the real phenomenon. This model and theoretical calculation were used to quantify the water loss in a time interval and, compared with empirical dates, no significant differences were observed, which indicated an increased degree of accuracy regarding the use of this model. Recommendation and novelty of work: The novelty of the work is given by the obtained model (RWLMod), which makes possible the description of RWL over the entire time interval, and ensures a good fit with the real data. It recommends the method and model in studies of plant behaviour under stress in relation to different influencing factors.

Observations in Romania show that the months of January and February are starting to show an increasing interest for tourists in areas known for winter sports involving snow. This observation is at odds with the period hitherto considered traditional for winter tourism in Romania, i.e., from the end of December to the first few days of January, when school holidays and employee holidays are frequently scheduled. Analysis of the climatic data of recent years shows a shortening of the period when natural weather conditions are favorable for this type of tourism. In this paper it was statistically determined that the maximum share of negative temperature coverage of Romania’s territory tends to occur at present in the second half of January. It is therefore necessary to correlate the school and labor law timetables with the new climatic conditions and other measures to adapt to current conditions.

Many images of agricultural crops are made at different times of the day, images with different spectral information about the same crop in relation to conditions when the picture was taken. A set of 30 digital images of a wheat crop in the BBCH 3-Stem elongation code 32–33 stage was captured between 9 am and 14 (UTC+3), in the 0°–180° variation range of the image acquisition angle on the E-W axis (cardinal directions). A high variation of the spectral data given by the combination of the hour (h) and angle (a) at which the images were captured was found. The interdependence relationship between the analyzed parameters (r, g, and b), and the time (t) and the angle (a) of image acquisition was assessed with the linear correlation coefficient. By calculating the roots of the mathematical expressions of the correlation coefficients dependence on the angles (a) or times of day (t), the optimal angle and time were determined as a combination of the two variables for capturing images and obtaining optimal ro, go, bo values. The correction coefficients of the normalized r, g, and b values obtained out of the optimal field were determined. To this end, the multiplication of the r(a,t), g(a,t), and b(a,t) values with the ρa,t, γa,t, and βa,t correction coefficients was suggested to reach the optimal values for sustainable decisions.