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The paper presents several aspects regarding the legislative context in which paradigm shifts occur in the Romanian university education and which have influenced the process of students’ evaluation system. The premise and the research objectives are also depicted. In order to achieve these objectives, a questionnaire was conducted among the master’s students at the Faculty of Geography, Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, in the academic year of 2012-2013. The study has analysed the master’s students’ perceptions and representations about the evaluation forms of a discipline, the share played by the results obtained at seminars in the final assessment, theassessment methods and techniques students consider effective for a written exam, the type of results a student should prove in order to achieve the maximum grade, the grading correctness, the importance of evaluation and re-evaluation in the process of training and development of professional skills and the feedback provided by the professor, the clarity of evaluation criteria.

This paper starts from the analysis of needs of specialty training for Geography teachers when confronted with the scientific evolution of the field and considering the challenges imposed by an ever changing educational system. Within this framework, the Faculty of Geography at “Babeş-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, as a supplier of teacher training courses, organized a training course in the field of Geomatics. We analyzed the necessity and usefulness of this type of training course considering the number of teachers interested in this training course and an evaluation form of the course. Additionally, we evaluated the way in which the competences obtained during the formation program in Geomatics were put into practice on two separate components: an increase in the degree of attractiveness in Geography lessons and the improvement of students’ school performance. The efficiency of the training program was evaluated by comparing the knowledge taught during a reference lesson in which the teaching was carried out in two different ways. The following step was to apply a unique test to two different student groups with a similar level of knowledge, which revealed that the best results belonged to the students in the group in which the methods and techniques used to deliver the teaching were the ones acquired during the training course. By validating the initial hypothesis, we reached the conclusion that it was necessary to introduce these GIS-TIC contents in the educational context for preuniversity education.

This paper has been elaborated to realize a radiography of the existing situation related to evaluation, but also to identify the main deficiencies of the evaluation process. From a methodological point of view we questioned students from different specializations belonging to the Faculty of Geography, “Babeş-Bolyai” University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The chosen sample was not established from the very beginning but the questionnaire was applied during courses and seminars, so the percentage of the respondents is directly proportional to students’ presence at the respective classes. Regarding the evaluating practice, the study reveals a series of specific traits such as: high percentage of the written exams in students evaluation, high dose of subjectivity presented by the responding students or the existence of a rather big discrepancy in the respondents percentage of each specialization. We noticed students’ preferences for the evaluator’s feedback at the end of the evaluation process but, also, the chance of sitting again for the exam.

The setting up of metropolitan areas is a process which is still in progress in Romania. The legislative framework for the creation of these areas has been built up only since 2001, and there are still a number of juridical inconsistencies concerning the association of administrative units to form metropolitan areas. On the other hand, political reasons and the fear of losing a certain degree of authority and to become subordinates of the large cities (in the case of rural municipalities) also hindered the development of metropolitan areas in Romania. Nevertheless, the metropolitan areas already in existence are running a number of projects that are beneficial for most members of the association. Such positive examples may trigger the creation of the other metropolitan areas. Although the existing metropolitan areas did not yield spectacular results, the time passed since their foundation is yet too short to correctly assess their usefulness and territorial meaning. For the moment, the following metropolitan areas exist in Romania: Iaşi, Oradea, Braşov, Constanţa, Bacău, Cluj-Napoca, Târgu Mureş and Craiova. Bucharest, Timişoara, Ploieşti and Galaţi-Brăila metropolitan areas are still in process of setting up.

The present study intends to highlight the way in which the small towns in Bihor County, Romania are trying to find again their place and part in the upsetting territorial construction, through various mutations of their functions, after the fall of the communist regime. The setup of the Territorial Planning Units (TPUs) in the effort to optimize the territorial development through construction of structures of intercommunal cooperation, turned some small towns in Bihor County into poles of local development. The question that this study intends to answer is: Are these towns capable to assume this role, considering the relict structures inherited from the communist past? In order to answer it, we considered the development potential of the small towns as a tool of assessment and validation of the viability of the poles imposed by the intercommunal construction. Thus, we carried out the comparison between the real development poles, highlighted by the analysis of potential, and non-viable development poles, imposed by the intercommunal construction, thus resulting in a typology. The suggested typology identifies three types of development poles: viable, vulnerable and non-viable. Applied to other counties as well, this typology can become a tool of assessment of the functionality of the intercommunal construction.

The presence and management of abandonedindustrial sites (brownfields), which cover largeareas of land in the Crişul Repede Valley TerritorialPlanning Unit, is a great challenge. Of the manyabandoned industrial sites, the glass factory ofPădurea Neagră was selected in order to highlightthe peculiarities of a certain typology of territorialoccupation and use, which is representative forthe studied area. The whole abandoned area wasreserved entirely for the glass factory, which nowfinds itself in an advanced stage of degradation.As a peculiarity, one remarks that it is surroundedby the neighboring secondary homes, an areain full expansion. The industrial zone covers asignificant part of the built-up area of the village(21%), preventing the development of the territoryin question, while at the same time it creates anaesthetic disability for the small community whichhas only the perspective of tourism development.The revitalization of the community can beachieved through the rehabilitation/conversionof the industrial area, as a valid alternative tothe inevitable urban expansion, as it will have apositive impact on the development of tourism.There are many uses which could be gained as aresult of the rehabilitation, but the most appropriateuse would be a multifunctional center of creation,accompanied by a small glass museum and aworkshop that would produce small-scale traditionalglasswork, for tourism purposes.

The present study contributes to the morphogenesis of the Miresii Cave, located in Cheia Mare of Dâmbovița in the area of the Bran—Dragoslavele Corridor, an important tourist axis in Romania. The main aim of the research is the proposal to the Scientific Council of Piatra Craiului National Park to bring to the attention of the national decision-making commissions that the cave be declared a natural monument. The inventory of this speleological geomorphosite suggested its inclusion in a thematic geotouristic circuit integrated into national and EU-protected natural areas. The novelty of the present research lies in the fact that the cave has never been studied before, being difficult to access. This cave, spatially found in the strict protection zone of the national park, is not included in its management plan. When being integrated into other nature protection areas, it is necessary to exclude any form of recreational tourism so that the cave can be exploited as a geotouristic resource strictly for research and educational purposes. The morphogenetic analysis of the cave, based on the information synthesized from geomorphological and geological literature, allowed us to decipher the morphological individualization of Miresii Cave in the local and regional geocronomorphological context, in accordance with the chronological separation of the karstification phenomenon manifested first in phreatic and later in vadose karst. The diversified typology of speleothems has been rendered according to the geomorphologic generating processes. The identification of the Rhinolophus ferrumequinum chiropteran colony and observations of its biotope highlighted the ecological significance of the cave. The inventory of the individuals of the colony led to the conclusion that the cave harbors one of the first two largest bat communities of this species in the national park and the adjacent depressional corridor. The present study may allow the documentation of the photographs and description of the geomorphosite integrated into the proposed thematic circuit to be included on billboards and in promotional brochures. Thus, it could also be useful for the decision-making authorities of Rucar and Podu Dâmboviței villages, which are interested in making decisions related to the promotion of geotourism, especially due to the existence of numerous geological and geomorphological tourist resources in the administrative territories.

The present study is part of the context in which Romania adopted the European Parliament Directive 2007/60/EC on flood risk assessment and management. Therefore, the aim of this research is to assess the risk induced by a hydrological hazard, expressed by a financial value estimation, for the Turcu River in the northern sector of the Bran–Dragoslavele transcarpathian corridor (Romania), an important tourist axis where the pressure on land has increased considerably. As a result, the intra-village areas of Moieciu de Sus, Cheia, Moieciu de Jos, Bran and Tohanu Nou have also expanded into areas vulnerable to flooding. There are currently no studies on the areas potentially affected as well as the extent of the possible damage. For this reason, we proceeded to model the water level corresponding to the maximum flow value with a probability exceeding 1%, using HEC-RAS and ArcGIS software. The results of the implementation of the spatial analysis model resulted in the delineation of the floodplain and the assessment of the potential financial loss related to the minimum market value of the land with the related real estate infrastructures. The research reveals that in the 1% band area (78.7841 ha) with water depth > 0.5 m, more than 433 infrastructures are at high risk of flooding, most of them with high real estate value, i.e., 5.61 km of roads for which a cost of EUR 3,402,666.90 was calculated for restoration. A knowledge of financial vulnerability to flooding becomes important for the community; local authorities involved in making decisions for insuring real estate at risk and planning/managing investments work to prevent/combat the effects of flooding.

This study represents a comparison between two independent models used to evaluate landslide susceptibility in Romania: first, the model derived from the Romanian Governmental Decision no. 447/2003 (H.G. 447) and second, the bivariate statistical analysis. Considering the numerous objections to the first approach, which is also imposed by law, the accuracy of the results was analyzed using an alternative method which takes into consideration the reality from the field to a greater extent (the inventory of the existing landslides). The case study is focused on the Niraj catchment area (658 km2), a representative area for frequent landslide occurrence. The H.G. 447 model implies the estimation of the importance of eight factors involved in landslide occurrence: lithology, geomorphology, structure, hydro-climatic factors, hydrogeology, seismicity, forest cover and the anthropogenic factor. A thematic map was generated and analyzed for each one of the eight factors influencing slope instability and a specific coefficient was assigned. The statistical model, based on the bivariate probability analysis, was applied in order to predict the spatial distribution of the susceptibility classes. The probability of landslide occurrence was estimated based on the assumption that the prediction of the spatial distributions of landslides starts from the existing ones. In order to validate the model, the resulting maps were compared with the existing landslide maps: the relative landslide density index (R) and the relative operation curve (ROC) value were calculated, which indicate that the statistical model emphasizes a better correlation between the susceptibility classes and the active landslides (ROC value 0.972), the causative factors selected being relevant for the applied models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rain gauges provide accurate rainfall amount data; however, the interpolation of their data is difficult, especially because of the high spatial and temporal variability. On the other hand, a high-resolution type of information is highly required in hydrological modeling for discharge calculations in small catchments. This problem is partially solved by meteorological radars, which provide precipitation data with high spatial and temporal distributions over large areas. The purpose of this study is to validate a conditional merging technique (CMT) for 15 rainfall events that occurred on the southern slope of the Tibleș and Rodnei Mountains (Northern Romania). A Geographic Information System (GIS) methodology, based on three interpolation techniques—simple kriging, ordinary kriging, and cokriging—were utilized to derive continuous precipitation fields based on discrete rain gauge precipitation data and to derive interpolated radar data at rain gauge locations, and spatial analysis tools were developed to extract and analyze the optimal information content from both radar data and measurements. The dataset contains rainfall events that occurred in the period of 2015–2018, having 24 h temporal resolution. The model performance accuracy was carried out by using three validation metrics: mean bias error (MBE), mean absolute error (MAE), and root mean square error (RMSE). The validation stage showed that our model, based on conditional merging technique, performed very well in 11 out of 15 rainfall events (approximate 78%), with an MAE under 0.4 mm and RMSE under 0.7 mm.

The present paper offers an analysis of the concept of SEA and its role in the development of hydroenergetic plant planning. The article provides information related to the institutional aspects of the strategic environmental assessment processes, at the same time outlining the potential benefits of the procedure in the assessment and management of environmental effects. In addition, the paper offers useful information consisting of relevant issues to be considered when elaborating Environmental Reports for hydroenergetic plans, as well as environmental targets to be achieved in relation to the management of water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morphometric variables that are specific to Niraj River bear changes along its length due to a series of factors: liquid and solid discharge variation, river slope, the riverbed deposits type, land use changes and engineering works carried out on the riverbed. It can be seen an asymmetric evolution overtime concerning the meanders changing rate in concordance with environmental changes (precipitation quantity, debit, land use). Nevertheless, the lack of annual cartographic materials by comparison with the debit and precipitation data is a barrier in making a direct correspondence between altitude, erosion rate, precipitation and flow. For highlighting the flow variability in time and space of the Niraj catchment we used monthly mean and maximum discharges recordered at Cinta and Gălesti hydrometric stations as well as pluviometric data from stations across studied hydrographic basin between 1970-2009. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies highlight the benefic influence of forests on the quality of environment. There is an interest for identifying the pretability of a certain territory for representative forest tree species according to their pedological, hydro-climatic and geomorphological characteristics. The main purpose of this endeavour is the enhancement of a territory's economic quality as well as the highlighting of the forest's stabilizing role which is determined by new forest plantations with well-defined purposes. This study aims at proposing a quantitative model based on correlation equations between forest favourability classes and ecological factors/determiners for the main forest species from the hill bioclimatic zone. By using geographic information system (GIS) spatial analysis and integrating a specific digital database, forest favourability classes were identified for eight of the most common forest species from Someşul Mare Hills: pedunculate oak, Turkey oak, Hungarian oak, hornbeam, linden, sycamore tree, cherry tree and beech. The main focus was laid on developing and obtaining the necessary digital database for the GIS spatial analysis model and on the work stages of creating a GIS model which could be implemented in areas with similar characteristics.

Multi–risk assessment supposes an integrated analysis of various processes and phenomena generating risks across the territory, highlighting the individual and cumulative impact at different levels of analysis. This paper aims at creating an assessment model of multi–risk generated by the cumulative effects of landslides and floods, processes considered as significant in the study area, the administrative unit of the city of Reghin in the Transylvanian Basin. To obtain the multi–risk, two GIS spatial analysis models have been created. The first model means to identify the probability of landslide occurrence (built on GIS databases in vector and raster format, correlatively analysed by means of spatial analysis functions and equations), and is adapted according to legislative regulations stipulated in the Government Decision no. 447/2003. The second one is a database regarding the floodable area with a 1% probability in raster format, resulted from a nation–wide model created to identify the flooded areas. The multi–risk map was created using the mediation method, in which every class of individual (geomorphological or hydrological) hazard receives equal weight within the final result. As a consequence of applying the above–mentioned models, we obtained areas with different probabilities for cumulative risk processes, which are rendered as favourable or restrictive in terms of locating different structures (roads, settlements, functional areas, shopping centres). According to the degree of validation, these may be used for a more precise determination of the development areas and for territorial planning.

Nature builds resilience through storages of energy and one of the most iconic elements encompassing this capacity is represented by forests. Biomass in general and forests in particular are known to be one of the vast global reservoirs of carbon and energy and are described as forms of renewable natural capital that managed until the second half of the ninetieth century to globally sustain human communities as the major source of energy. Forests actively contribute to the functionality of a territorial system through a series of attributes such as water retention capacity, soil and slope stability, primary production capacity, all termed ecosystem services, benefits that communities take for granted. In more remote rural areas around the world, such as the Carpathian Mara River watershed, local communities still rely on forestry wood as the main supplier of thermal energy. The dependency relation also represents the community’s level of perception towards natural resources, the landmarks and image of the entire Land of Maramureș as „the wood civilisation”, for example, being a cultural construct build through this energetic resource. In a time of pressure over energetic resources and following the premises of Emergy Theory and methodology, in this paper we propose an alternative approach in assessing natural resources in order to better understand that the exploitable energetic value of forests comes second when compared with the value of the provided ecosystem services.

The accentuated dynamics of the real estate markets of the last 20 years, determined that a large part of the territories in the immediate vicinity of the big urban centers, to change their category of land use, in an accelerated rhythm. Most of the time, the land use changes according to the market requirements, the predominantly agricultural lands being occupied by constructions with residential or industrial functions. Identifying these changes is a difficult task due to the heterogeneity of spatial databases that come from different real estate development projects, so determining and implementing new methods to track land changes are currently highly required. This paper presents a methodologically innovative index-based approach for the rapid mapping of built-up areas, using Landsat-5, Landsat-7, and Landsat-8 satellite imagery. The approach described in this study differs from other conventional methods by the way the analysis was performed and also by the thematic indices used in the processes of built-up area delineation. The method, structured in a complex model, based on Remote Sensing and GIS techniques, can be divided into three distinct phases. The first stage is related to the pre-processing of the remote sensing data. The second stage involves the calculation of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI), and the bare soil index (BI) correlated with the extraction of all areas not covered by vegetation; respectively, the elimination from the result of all areas covered by water, bare land, or uncultivated arable land. The result of this stage is represented by a distinct thematic layer that contains only built-up areas and other associated territories. The last step of the model is represented by the validation of the results, which was performed based on statistical methods and also by direct comparison with field reality, obtaining a validation coefficient which is generally above 85% for any of the methods used. The validation process shows us that by applying this method, the fast mapping of the built-up areas is significantly enhanced and the model is suitable to be implemented on a larger scale in any practical and theoretical application that aims at the rapid mapping of the built-up areas and their evolutionary modeling.

The efficient capitalisation of agricultural land is dependent on determining the environmental suitability of the area and on identifying the most appropriate culture types for a particular terrain. Because of its complex landforms, the anthropic pressure and the irrational use of land on large surfaces, the Basin of Niraj River was the object of a reorganising process in the production activities, by emphasising the agricultural land use as a resource for sustainable development, which has been too long underexploited. The technique of capability classification, in collaboration with the GIS techniques of spatial analysis, represents one of the most facile and concrete ways of identifying and creating an inventory of lands which fulfil the best conditions for the creation of orchards, through the use of specific indicators: climatic, morphometric, morphologic, pedologic. The present study created a new GIS model of spatial analysis, which could offer a new approach to the classical method of land capability classification. The identification of the areas which are suitable for fruit tree cultivation was based on this model by integrating the specific indicators into databases and GIS spatial analysis equations. The results of this study highlights the maps of the land favorability for apple trees, pear trees, plum trees, cherry trees, peach trees and apricot trees and a geodatabase materialization in the maps of quality classes for orchards.

The economic liberalism, globalization and more recently the economic crisis are general phenomena leading to changes of territorial management practices. Within these practices, place marketing and branding are of crucial importance in promoting an image of the city and bringing some added value to a place. Although an emerging challenging problem for local authorities, few scholars are currently addressing the subject, in terms of delivering a branding modus operandi for the practitioners, be they local authorities or private agencies. The present paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the most recent writings showing how product marketing techniques apply to place marketing, with an emphasis on city branding, presenting the manner in which the place branding process was improved in two of the most representative cities of Transylvania: Sibiu and Cluj-Napoca. The paper’s main objective is to highlight the role of territorial marketing which can become, through one of its components, namely place branding, an important trigger for the local communities development by the means of strategic planning. In this respect, the present work displays an overview of some of the most illustrative theoretical models regarding city branding, an insight on the Romanian city branding process within the two aforementioned cities and, finally, some brief recommendations regarding the place and the role of branding process for local authorities. The paper assumes that although place branding is an efficient tool for promoting a territory’s identity (already proven in several European cities), Romania is at the beginning of this process. The few significant achievements (the ones from Sibiu and Cluj-Napoca being the most notable) still cannot make the most of their urban identities and values, neither at national, nor at international level. Last but not least, this kind of papers might raise some awareness among local stakeholders on the importance of these somehow new techniques.