Search

Environmental fragility in a mining area is evaluated both in terms of its biophysical (natural) and socio-economic components and their anthropogenic interactions. We identified multiple criteria and indicators for this task, but then reduced these according to responses given by 60 experts in domains related to spatial planning. We used the selected criteria and indicators to develop environment fragility indices for each territorial administrative unit (LAU2) in Gorj County in south-western Romania. The resulting indices reveal quite large spatial variations in fragility and evidence that highly fragile human and physical environments are to some extent intertwined. In this respect, such environmental components as climate, soils, ecosystems, natural hazards and economic issues provide constraints on human activities, whilst humans themselves can, without sufficient care, increase fragility and adversely affect the quality of living environments for present and future generations. We also explore how such estimates of natural and anthropogenic fragility might enable better specific planning for local and regional development that aims to ameliorate both environmental and human adversity in an integrated way.

We identify many current and impending technologies that are likely to impact dramatically on most aspects of rural economy, society and environment, even in the short term. As a result, two of society’s major looming problems are (a) how best to accelerate the uptake of beneficial technologies while (b) helping individuals, communities or places damaged by the likely course of events – for example by updating people’s skill sets and revising their ambitions and preferences. The increasing problem for governments, communities and businesses alike is that we have limited knowledge of future economic and social trajectories driven by such technologies. Thus, traditional blue-print planning will be increasingly redundant and effective paths to the future will require intensive and inclusive debate and discussions surrounding best options which, along with strong leadership, will help fashion creative, flexible and adaptive cultures. Given geographical diversity in resources it is quite possible that emergent optimal strategies will vary from place to place.

Armed with a scholarship to find an answer to the question “What is geography?” Simion Mehedinţi's studies took him to continental Europe's three main centers of geographic thought: Paris, Berlin, ...

Bucharest is a city in transition from its communist past to a market economy, but poor urban planning in is impacting adversely on contested spaces. Lack of effective and strictly enforced regulation and public sector indecision, mixed with problems inherited from the Ceausescu regime, generate many examples of poor urban planning and management. One such example concerns the uncertain future of Vacaresti “Lake”, our in-depth case study, which is an encapsulated 184 ha wetland whose management has been particularly poor. Employing a mixed methodology of mapping the evolution of the area in question and conducting interviews with surrounding residents and experts in the urban planning or public administration, we demonstrate how lack of an effective planning system and appropriate policies serves to exacerbate conflict between interested parties. Initially there was a conflict between former land owners and authorities, after which developers, surrounding populations, urban planners and ecologists were added. Worse still, the juridical owners of the site are unresolved! Many government agencies and the Bucharest municipality have also compounded the problem by failing to take a lead in future planning and conflict resolution by adopting a passive management approach, which is a recipe for inaction in a poorly regulated land market. Thus, incoherent land use policy has greatly amplified individual and professional conflict both at the local level and city-wide.

Our case study focuses on the April 2006 flood event on the Danube River, which inundated Rast village in Romania’s Dolj County. This was partially due to the highest water level ever registered on the Danube River since the beginning of hydrological observations. However, we consider that the inappropriate management on the part of several levels of government and their regulatory agencies exacerbated the outcome. We initially explore how they created a quasi-artificial flood disaster. This, in turn, led to considerable adverse consequences, resulting from the poor analysis of existing options and from the taken emotional actions. We particularly contest two decisions taken by the management authorities. One concerns the decision to breach a critical dyke during the flood, which led to the inundation of Rast. The second was the post-crisis plan to relocate the village. Both actions appear in retrospect to have been unwise and we explain why this is the case. We also note significant changes in agricultural land use and environmental conditions within the commune’s administrative boundaries, together with the emergence of legal uncertainties related to land use, and additional problems in the adequate public service provision in the post-flood period. Our methodologies involved questionnaire surveys of affected people and the local authorities, the analysis of available statistical data, the analysis of land-use changes using CORINE Land Cover data, and a variety of field observations. The analysis of the processes driving such outcomes lead us to discuss the theoretical patterns of inappropriate and oversized responses to such disasters and a proposed schema of types of responses to critical natural events.

Pritchard B., Argent N., Baum S., Bourke L., Martin J., McManus P., Sorensen A. and Walmsley J. Local – if possible: how the spatial networking of economic relations amongst farm enterprises aids small town survival in rural Australia, Regional Studies. Over recent decades, the tendency in developed countries has been the consolidation of farms into fewer and larger units, and a shifting of economic functions from smaller to larger population settlements. This paper uses data from face-to-face interviews with 115 Australian farmers in agriculture-dependent regions to investigate how the spatial pattern of farm expenditure affects these processes. It is concluded that in these spatial contexts, stability, attachment, and reliance on ‘the local’ remain vital components in farm–town economic links, notwithstanding substantial adaptation by farmers to restructured economic and community circumstances. Such expenditures help sustain small towns, thus tempering judgements on rural decline. Pritchard B., Argent ...