Abstract. Maintaining and increasing landscape connectivity, especially of forest landscapes, are some of the main concerns regarding biodiversity conservation. The connectivity of protected areas for different species represents an indicator for evaluating the effectiveness of the Natura 2000 network. Our research aims to evaluate the connectivity of forest landscapes in the Romanian Alpine Biogeographical Region (ABR) for various terrestrial species. We analysed the distribution of forest patches and Sites of Community Importance (SCI), as part of Natura 2000 network, in the Romanian ABR. We evaluated the connectivity of forest patches for terrestrial species with different dispersal distances, identifying those patches with significant contribution to maintain the forest landscape connectivity, through the graph theory approach. To quantify the importance of each node, we evaluated the dPCconnector fraction derived from the dPC index. Of the 125 SCIs in the Romanian ABR, 71 protected areas have over 1000 ha, four of them have more than 100,000 ha. The total protected surfaces cover ~35% of the Romanian ABR, and the forest surfaces, protected in SCIs, cover 26% of the total Romanian ABR. Regarding the connectivity scores, we found that the forest surfaces across the ABR are well connected (0.89 or 1 for different dispersal distances) in comparison with the Natura 2000 forest patches. The forest patches are well connected especially for the species with large dispersal distance in both cases (d = 25 km). For the species characterized by a small dispersion distance, the connectivity is lower (0.46) in the case of protected forests. Our results evidence that the connectivity objective of the forest surfaces protected through the Nature 2000 network is not totally achieved. Furthermore new protected areas are needed where the forest are still present for increasing landscape connectivity for species.
In general, the elaboration of the synthesis of water quality in Romania is based on the processing of a large volume of information coming from primary analytical data collected with a constant frequency by the organisms with a specific role in water quality monitoring. This study proposes a novel methodology for multi-criteria analysis aiming to evaluate the degradation state of lake ecosystems. The cornerstone of the newly presented methodology is a geographic information system (GIS) automated tool, involving the assessment of potential degradation sources affecting the watershed that supply the lakes with water. The methodology was tested by performing an analysis on 30 lakes in Romania. The lakes belong to different geographical areas, owing various natural specific conditions and were selected to fit to various types and specific local conditions. The calculation of the WRASTIC-HI (Wastewater–Recreation–Agriculture–Size–Transportation–Industry–Cover–Hazard Index) revealed that, out of 30 lake ecosystems selected as the case study, two lakes were fully degraded, 24 lakes were semi-degraded, and four were in a natural state. The four lakes characterised by a natural state are located in mountainous regions or in the Danube Delta. The results obtained on the selected lakes proved that the proposed index calculation corresponded in all case studies to the real field situation, highlighting thus the accuracy of the assessing process and increased advantages of the assessment’s automation.
Globally, ecosystems are constantly degrading as a result of pressures derived from human activities and climate change. For working towards the restoration of the natural balance, it is necessary to evaluate the deviations induced in the ecosystems, to identify where the changes took place, to know what is their amplitude and to decide where it is possible to get involved. Many aquatic ecosystems are depreciated and their restoration is often difficult. Development of appropriate assessment methodologies will improve the decision-making process in public policies for environmental protection and conservation of biodiversity. This study presents an assessment of the degradation level of lentic ecosystems in Romania, performed through a multi-criteria analysis. An extension of the WRASTIC index (Wastewater-Recreational-Agricultural-Size-Transportations-Indutrial-Cover) was generated, namely WRASTIC-HI. The new index was obtained by including values derived from the Potential Pollutant Load index. The analysis showed that 13% of the evaluated lakes are natural, 56.5% are semi-degraded and 30.5% are degraded. The proposed methodology allows to determine the spatial distribution of the degradation sources and to calculate the corresponding indicators. The results obtained provide a useful tool for diagnostic step that can be used as a cornerstone to further identification of environmental conflicts and proposals for improvement of the ecological status of the lentic ecosystems.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.