Impacts of forest loss in the eastern Carpathian Mountains: linking remote sensing and sediment changes in a mid-altitude catchment (Red Lake, Romania)

Abstract

Worldwide accelerated forest loss and the associated environmental impacts are important 33 environmental concerns. In this study we integrate evidence from historical maps and a Landsat-34 Highlights  inter-disciplinary approach assesses impacts of forest change on catchment scale geomorphic processes over the last 150 years  multi-proxy, dated lake sediment profile records forest disturbance catchment impacts  link between sediment changes and remote sensing reveals the nature and timing of recent catchment process responses to forest disturbances  catchment-lake environmental management perspective in an environmentally important area

Climate and land-use as the main drivers of recent environmental change in a mid-altitude mountain lake, Romanian Carpathians

“…The RDA analysis showed a clear response in the lake proxies to PLOS ONE changes in hydroclimate (dry vs wet periods) driven by large-scale teleconnections, AMO/ NAO. This interference of climate-driven lake changes was also supported by the occurrence of only minor changes in land-use as shown by the map-based analysis; modest human impact over this period was also observed regionally, in other mountain records [25,78].…”

“…Furthermore, the map-based land-use analysis does not show significant landscape changes, which is also supported by the area's low population suggesting an overall modest anthropogenic impact. Such minor changes in land-cover are also observed in other mid-and high-altitude mountain lakes across the Carpathians [25,78]. Such records suggest that between the 1920's and 1960's the responses of the paleolimnological proxies at Lake Ighiel closely track natural hydroclimate variability in parallel with other examples from the region [25,78].…”

“…It might be expected that landscape changes in this part of the catchment will have a marked impact on Lake Ighiel's sedimentation regime by enhancing the sediment input. It is well documented that forest disturbances (loss of forest cover), by removing vegetation cover and exposing the soil to direct rain impact, activate geomorphological processes and promote sedimentation especially on steep slopes [78,88,89]. Thus, deforestation on such steep slopes, in addition to grazing intensification, might have contributed to the high but variable SAR, indicative of enhanced intra-catchment variability in sediment availability.…”

Disentangling dust and sand deposition using a peat record in CE Europe (northern Romania): A multiproxy approach

“…It is documented that increase in farming activity worldwide over the last two centuries (Olofsson et al 2011), has resulted in land degradation and consequently higher soil erosion rates and concentrations of dust in the atmosphere (De Vleeschouwer et al, 2009;Marx et al, 2011;Le Roux et al, 2012;Fiałkiewicz-Kozieł et al, 2016;Hutchinson et al, 2015;Haliuc et al, 2018).…”

Natural and anthropogenic impacts reflected by paleoclimate proxy parameters in a lake-forest system in Bukovina, Romania

“…et al 2001;Magyari, E.K. et al 2009;Kłapyta, P. et al 2016;Haliuc, A. et al 2019). The study site selected for this analysis is located in Bukovina region, Romania, where historical records documented substantial landscape changes throughout the past centuries, including mainly deforestation and subsequent land cover / land use shifts (Barbu, I. et al 2016).…”