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On a global scale, traffic incidents are a leading cause of mortality and material damage. Romania exhibits the highest rate of road traffic fatalities both in the European Union and worldwide, requiring a comprehensive examination of its overall influence on a national level. The current study uses an extensive approach centering on a spatial analysis model based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Employing a series of spatial databases, this model delineates the geographical distribution and characteristics of road accidents to establish both their cumulative national impact and the identification of high-risk areas. The spatial database, containing traffic incident data, is constructed using geolocation techniques and integrated through network analysis to evaluate the impact in relation to distance. The AHP framework is applied in analyzing the impact across five key dimensions: accident severity, occurrence mode, prevailing weather conditions, traffic restrictions, and road markings. This multi-level AHP analysis not only identifies high-risk hotspots but also confirms the effectiveness of the proposed spatial model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper represents the third part of a larger study concerning tourism in Sălaj County, taking into consideration the tourism infrastructure in the county. The paper analysed statistical data regarding the accommodation establishments and their capacity, available online from the National Institute of Statistics (TEMPO-ONLINE database) for a period of 33 years, between 1990 and 2022. The total number of accommodation establishments dropped from 23 in 1990 to 16 in 2007, but then increased significantly, reaching 127 accommodation units in 2022. Most of these recently emerged units, such as bungalows and guesthouses, have however a small capacity. Therefore, the evolution in terms of the total number of available beds in certified accommodation units has not been equally spectacular. There was the same decreasing trend, from 1922 beds in 1990, to 754 beds in 2008, followed by an increase, which nevertheless reached a maximal value of 1923 beds in 2016. Since then, the overall capacity has slightly decreased. Most of the beds are currently available in accommodation establishments located in towns (mainly in Zalău) and spa resorts, especially in hotels, hostels, and guesthouses. The general trend in recent years has been to improve the degree of comfort, which in Zalău gave rise to several 4-star hotels, in addition to the existent 3-star hotels. Recreational facilities are mainly available in the two spa resorts, Băile Boghiş and Bizuşa-Băi, but there are some similar facilities in Zalău, Jibou and şimleu Silvaniei, while most of the seats in public catering facilities are located in Zalău, Boghiş and Ip. The positive trend in terms of tourism infrastructure is expected to be maintained in the following years, as tourism is the economic activity most likely to be strategically important for the sustainable development of Sălaj County in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this research is to develop a set of vulnerability indicators and to analyze the effect of climate factors on social vulnerability. While the main aim of the study is to improve the existing methodology by quantifying the effects of climate change on social vulnerability, it also represents a novel scientific contribution in the field, as it delimits for the first time in the Romanian literature the most vulnerable areas from this point of view. This study aims to facilitate the decision-making processes and planning efforts targeting the increase of resilience and adaptive capacity of local communities. By applying the principal component analysis, we have selected 45 variables and have constructed four aggregated indexes. The Climate-Related Social Vulnerability index (CleSoVI) has pointed out that the largest impact on the current vulnerability of settlements in the test region (Cluj County) can be attributed to the lack of adaptive capacity and increased poverty, the most vulnerable areas being represented by the eastern and north-western parts of the county. From a socio-economic point of view, local authorities' efforts should concentrate on reducing the vulnerability of these regions and preparing them to cope with- and adapt to the impact of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anthropogenic heritage represents an integral part of the primary tourism supply. Together with the natural attractions, manmade attractions represent the essential reason for the emergence and development of tourism in Sălaj County or anywhere else. The identification and structuring of the anthropogenic attractive resources in Sălaj County was adapted to the configuration and specificity of the existing heritage in the analysed space, including the following types: archaeological sites and historical monuments, museums and memorial houses, monuments, statues, cultural and artistic events, as well as the intangible heritage (traditions, customs, music, dances, crafts). The data were collected from various bibliographical and online sources, as well as directly in the field. However, except for Porolissum archaeological site and Jibou Botanical Garden, many of these attractions are virtually unknown even in Romania, and they are mostly visited by locals, and by pilgrims in the case of churches and monasteries. Therefore, there is need for the setting up of a better overall image of Sălaj County as a tourist destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the anthropogenic tourism resources of Iara-Hăşdate Basin, which are the result of the combining effect of history, development of human civilization and typology and traditions of ethnic groups inhabiting the basin. The result is a unique cultural heritage belonging to both material and spiritual legacy, with visible attractive products for tourism materialized mostly in architecture, clothing, customs, music and gastronomy. The historical evolution of the area is reflected not only by culture, traditions and attitudes of the people towards lifetime events, but also by the relatively high number of tourism attractions from different historical periods, generating iconic architectural, historical and religious landmarks. Considering the complexity of tourism resources available in Iara-Hăşdate Basin, there are multiple types of tourism offered by the area. Existing natural conditions favor various forms of recreational mountain tourism from traditional winter leisure tourism, hiking and hunting tourism to more extreme ones like mountain climbing, caving and extreme tourism. The rich historical cultural heritage of the studied area offers very good premises for the development of various cultural tourism forms, mostly rural and religious tourism. The results of tourism resources assessment can be used to coordinate tourism development strategies for a superior endorsement and to better prioritize tourism related policies with a focus on economic development, land use management, territorial identity and environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the spatial structure of accessibility in Romania before and after the implementation of some major national and/or European road infrastructure projects. This study suggests a new index for accessibility measurement by combining gravity-based models with Place Rank and adapting it to the Romanian system of settlements. Based on the GIS estimation of travel time, this index evaluates not only the geographical position of a specific community relative to the road network, but also the level of accessibility of rural and urban communities to the social services located in central places. The GIS-based maps indicate the existing disparities (between well-connected and isolated regions in terms of accessibility to the central places) and the impact of new infrastructure projects on these disparities. The resulting maps can be used as efficient tools for transport planning and development at different scales (international, national, regional and local). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on previous works on the connectivity index applied to the settlements of Banat (Rusu, 2007; Rusu, 2008), the paper assesses the road connectivity index for the same settlements using a slightly different approach, based on the road distance from every settlement to the nearest central places, ranked on nine levels. Therefore, it is not the position on a certain road that counts, but the means by which specific groups of people (either urban or rural communities) might access a set of services or facilities deemed socially necessary and located in the above-mentioned central places. The welfare of the communities depends mainly on the standards of connectivity and accessibility to such services or facilities. We considered that the most valid measure of connectivity would then be the assessment of the space (distance) needed to be crossed for the population of every settlement to reach specific destinations. The overall values for each settlement have been interpolated using GIS in order to produce a map of the road connectivity index in Banat. The map clearly shows the existing disparities between well-connected regions, especially around the main cities, and isolated areas, usually in the mountains, the hills or along the borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study follow the assessment of geomorphological heritage of the Macin Mountains for geotourism development in the area. In order to analyze geomorphological features of this area and to achieve a digital map, we created a GIS databases comprising topographic map sheets, digital ortophotos and satellite images. Using these datasets the main geomorphologic features were extracted. As a result of this study we combined the most representative elements of the topography and we realized a digital map of landforms with geotouristic potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of global climate change, the agricultural sector is one of the most responsive. This study focused on changes detected in temperature requirements for maize crops based on growing season length and the growing degree day indices in Central Romania (Cluj County). Daily air temperature data over the period 1981–2013 was derived from two databases with different spatial resolutions: Agri4Cast Resources Portal and ROmanian ClimAtic Dataset. Further analysis, performed for the entire period and three 10/13-y sub-periods, focused on calculating and mapping the area of arable land for each suitability zone. The main findings were: there were differences up to 16% in the area of suitability zones when switching from the results obtained based on the coarse spatial resolution to the improved one; the differences were larger for the shorter and more recent sub-periods than for the entire period or for the first decade; and there was considerable improvement of thermal conditions for maize crops in the focus region over the considered period—suitability zone I was not detected for the first sub-period and became dominant for the last one. It can be concluded that using or developing a better spatial resolution database is very important for maximizing the profitability of agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]