Search

Cultural tourism (CT), although considered by some “friendly tourism”, has its impacts, being perceived by more and more people and communities as a force of change through its diversification. This study is aimed at exploring CT’ in Buzău Carpathians and Subcarpathians (BSC) perception by residents using the interview method, targeting three main objectives: Identifying the profiles of the interviewed residents on CT as a driving factor for future development of CT; Analysing the perceived aspects/elements linked to CT and Identifying the roles played by locals for the valorisation of CT sights. The results show that the residents understood CT as a mix between the natural and cultural dimensions of local reality and its positive impact on local traditions. The study highlights the idea that the residents could and should be active agents for the CT local attractions and for the future development of this type of tourism within the study area.

Millions of people from Ukraine have been forced to flee their homes to seek safety, protection, and assistance owing to armed conflict. This study aims to draw a parallel between the meaning and importance of the initial impact of Russian military aggression in February 2022 and the recent plight of Ukrainian refugees on Romania's territory. It is based on the results of a dedicated thematic survey of Ukrainian refugees as part of fieldwork carried out by the authors between March and April 2022 and a survey launched by the United Nations Refugee Agency in Romania between October 2022 and August 2023. The study emphasises the importance of raising awareness and building solidarity and support to counterbalance the effects of the crisis with respect to: (i) refugees in their hometowns and losses incurred; (ii) refugees' needs, help provided, and expectations; (iii) the need to integrate refugees into different fields of daily life; and (iv) a return to Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural tourism plays a growing role both in tourists' preferences and in tourism development options in many regions of the world. This paper examines how businesses in the Buzău Carpathians and Sub-Carpathians, a predominantly rural region where tourism relies heavily on the natural landscapes and cultural heritage, perceive cultural tourism. The analysis was performed using a questionnaire survey applied to the local business representatives, focusing on three key areas: (a) their interaction with visitors and contribution to the local economy; (b) their role as drivers of cultural tourism and improving communities' livelihoods; and (c) the current and future challenges they face. This study highlights the way in which local businesses support cultural tourism, empower local communities, and contribute to local and regional development through their connections with cultural and heritage attractions. Despite these businesses facing challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, limited promotion, a narrow cultural tourism offering, and weak institutional collaboration, the research findings emphasize their pivotal role in fostering both local and regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the problems faced by teachers, students, parents and authorities in Romania during the Coronavirus pandemic, as well as their management in the general context of the health crisis unfolding in this country. The documentation regarding Romania was compiled mainly on the basis of official reports and information taken from the media, due to the novelty of the subject for the case study presented. They were joined by theoretical-methodological works on the general epidemiological context and by studies on the particularities of the Romanian education system, which helped us to outline the theoretical-methodological background of the research. The authors have tried to highlight good practices, but also the errors that led to an increase in the number of cases and the imposition of restrictions, during the first four waves of the pandemic, with a major impact on educational activities in Romania. The main restrictions and advantages of online education, a first for the Romanian education system, are also highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructure, particularly technical one, is basis of economic activities both in urban and rural areas. The Romanian sector of the Danube Valley covers a large area, in which the life of resident communities is shaped by the River (1,075 km long). At present, 266 local administrative units (LAU2) in the Romanian Danube Valley number 238 communes, 28 municipia and towns and a population of 1.7 million inhabitants. The study relies on the data provided by the National Institute of Statistics, the results of the Population and Housing Census (2011) and TEMPO Online Database (Internet 1). Hierarchizing LAU2 in terms of the technical-urbanistic infrastructure was made by the Hierarchical Ascending Classification (HAC). The aim was to group together territorial-administrative units by their parametric variables. There are many Danube Valley communities still unconnected to local drinking-water and sewerage systems, a restrictive factor in drawing potential investments into local economies. The study points out that the large Danubian port-cities also have the longest water and natural gas supply networks, as well as the greatest proportion of dwelling-houses connected to these systems. A fairly good situation have also some rural settlements lying close to big municipia or to tourist towns (in Danube Gorge and Danube Delta).

Since a number of transnational issues have been cropping up, the need was felt for the existence of a unitary sys­tem to tackle them. So, the building of some cross-border cooperation structures both at local level (cross-border zones) and at regional level (Euro regions) appeared as highly necessary and desirable. Their typology depends on the intensity and character of cross-border fluxes, the existence of local convergence cores, and of elements of complementariness and homogeneity between the two frontier spaces. The Danube-lined Romanian-Bulgarian frontier represents an axis of discontinuity between two natural regions, each with its own district traits: the Romanian Plain in the north and the Pre-Balkan Mountain in the south. As a result, the limitrophe border zone shows particular social and economic characteristics. Although the Danube River has favored the emergence of an urban area, yet the respective towns do not form a coherent system, the zone itself being extremely rural as a whole. The Romanian-Bulgarian cross-border zone in the Danubian sector features by a sudden variation in transversal fluxes, concentrating on certain directions imposed by the pattern of communication routes and the layout of doublet towns. Most fluxes pass through the Giurgiu-Ruse sector, a strong argument in favor of establishing a Euro-region based on the cross-border cooperation between the two towns.

This article aims to highlight the impact on local development of traditional economic activities. The case study that the authors consider concerns an area in the Romanian Carpathians developed through transhumant grazing and forestry activities: Mărginimea Sibiului. As shepherding kept developing, forest-cutting intensified to make room for pastures and hayfields, thus stimulating activities connected with the processing of wood. As trade on the Danube was liberalized under the Peace Treaty of Adrianople and cultivated lands in the south of the country kept extending, transhumance steadily lost in importance, especially in the twentieth century, in the wake of the Second World War. This process was intensified by the collectivization practised in the socialist-type centralized economy period. Currently, transhumance at Mărginimea Sibiului is practised only in four villages: Poiana Sibiului, Tilişca, Jina and Răşinari. Sheep flocks and the herd of cattle are moved from the village to the mountain pastures, along age-old pastoral paths, strictly observed and known by the rural communities. Most pasture-lands lie far from the village hearths, in the highlands. The future development of Mărginimea Sibiului involves the revival of traditional economic activities, as well as the development of tourism as a representative economic branch for this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic farming is regarded as the most effective and environmentally friendly solution to the growing pressure on land resources as a result of population growth and urban demand for goods and services. In Romania, little research has been conducted on the geographical distribution of organic farming at regional level and no research at local level. Using both secondary and primary data for two years (2014 and 2018), the paper examines the spatial distribution and changes of organic farming in Romania. By using several indicators computed at the Local Administrative Unit (LAU) level, an overall picture of organic farming in Romania is provided. The results suggest regional disparities in the dynamics of the organic area, as well as several major concentrations of organic producers: one livestock-dominated located in the mountain-plateau-hilly region in the central, north and north-east of Romania and another crop-dominated found in the plain regions of the west, south and south-east. Apart from this spatial clustering, the pattern of organic farming is quite random, strongly depending on the local environmental conditions. Moreover, the authors identified a tight relationship between the development and spatial distribution of organic farming and policies support and European subsidies through Common Agricultural Policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The secondary sector of the Romanian economy has in time suffered several modifications, the most important ones being linked to the political and legislative systems. The present paper, which analyses the secondary sector in the Romanian economy, relies on the following variables: the turnover, the employed population, net investments, as well as various indicators that illustrate the enterprises' demographic picture. This paper is a spatial/geographical approach of the secondary sector in the national economy context; its subbranches, processes, social and economic actions, which influence its evolution in space, are entirely different. The space dimension of the variables analysed herein emphasizes the structural-quantitative changes which have occurred during the past few decades in the whole secondary sector and in each of the eight development regions. This approach proved useful in completing the more general economic analysis. The time-interval this analysis refers to is not the same for all the indicators chosen. However, the last two decades are fully covered by all the four variables taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to analyze and compare the characteristics of the human and economic geography of the Romanian Danube Valley, as they are described by Emmanuel de Martonne in his book "Wallachia, an essay on geographic monograph" comprising the current transformations of this region. The comparison gives us the opportunity to analyze the geographical history of the Danube Valley of over a century ago, between 1902, when Emmanuel de Martonne defended his doctoral thesis, right through the socialist development and up until the present moment, marked by economic reforms that redefine the Danube region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Declaring the Danube Delta a Biosphere Reserve (Law No. 83/1992) entailed changes in the Delta socio-economic activity, basically to have the local communities and economies adapted to these changes in a coherent manner. One of the major changes was the reorganisation of fishing, since most of the Delta inhabitants are engaged in this activity, as well as in agriculture. Changes in fishing got momentum especially after having this piscicolous resource concessioned, a move that directly affected the population whose fishingderived incomes dropped; moreover, some rights people had enjoyed before the Reservation came into being and after the catch had to be concessioned. An analysis of the evolution of the fish and fish culture legislation in time, was aimed at a better understanding of this activity and at establishing the best method of exploiting the fish resource by the Danube Delta local communities without disturbing the natural environment; the more so, as the Danube Delta enjoys a Biosphere Reserve status. And last but not least, the local population should be encouraged to practice sustainable fishing by using traditional tools and combine this occupation with alternative activities, such as, tourism, ecological tourism, in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of ethnical minority communities in the Romanian sector of Dobrogea (the counties of Tulcea and Constanţa) after the year 1990 is discussed based on the 1992, 2002 and 2011 census data. The analysis focusses on the structure, evolution and territorial distribution of each ethnical community at regional, county and settlement level and the changes experienced in their ethnical structure following the collapse of the communist political system and the increasing globalizing fluxes. Finally, the ethnical diversity index is calculated at locality level. The presence of ethnical minorities in Romania, with highlight on the study region, is the outcome of a lasting historical evolution of good co-habitation relations between the local majority and the newcomers, devoid of inter-ethnical conflicts. Dobrogea's ethnical communities would mingle, tolerating one another, borrowing one another's life-style, a reality that has in time developed a unique co-habilitation pattern known as the Dobrogean inter-ethnical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of dwelling, one of the main components of the urban and rural living conditions, is the result of political, legislative, economic, demographic contexts. The present paper approaches the complex issues of dwelling quality in the Romanian Danube Valley, based on the territorial disparities (LAU2 level) of three types of statistical indicators: dwelling stock (% of finished dwellings, % of finished dwellings out of the total number of dwellings), dwelling development indicators (living floor/m2 dwelling, living floor m2/inhabitant, density of dwellings) and comfort indicators (access to drinking water, sewerage, electricity, etc.). Differences in the Danube Valley dwelling quality are revealed by the Dwelling Quality Index (DQI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Romania, managing and recycling household garbage is one of the least performing systems in the European Union. Numerous waste dumping sites are unconformable to European standards, besides there is little garbage recycling. This paper makes a complex waste management analysis of the Romanian Danube riparian towns subjected to strong human pressure; this sector is also of great European interest for the protection of its biodiversity. The main dysfunctions of garbage dumping, the price asked by scavenging services, the steps taken for the ecological management of waste dumping sites in conformity with EU norms and better waste recycling, as well as future measures are also discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romania plays an important part in the EU Danube Region Strategy as co-ordinator country together with Austria. Its main goal is the socio-economic development of the Danube Region with strict observance of environmental protection principles. It is a priority task of this country as most of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve lies on its territory, a unique ecosystem in Europe and one of the largest natural wet zones in the world that has a threefold protection statute: UNESCO World Natural and Cultural Heritage Site, Wet Zone of International Importance (Ramsar Convention) and Biosphere Reserve of the "Man and Biosphere" UNESCO Programme. The Danube Delta Project aims at striking a balance between protecting this unique natural and cultural heritage and meeting the aspirations of the local population for better living conditions by creating the best opportunities for its economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a territorial and socioeconomic formation, the village represents the concrete expression of territorial permanence and continuity, directly relating to the genetic and dynamic factors of settlement phases and humanisation of the geographical space. Under the present conditions, a number of manifest phenomena are triggered by the decrease in birthrates, internal and external migration, all of which affect the process of population ageing throughout the country. In the 20 years elapsed since the downfall of the communist regime in 1989, the population of Romania dropped by nearly 1,713,000 inhabitants, 1,195,000 of them in the countryside alone. The demographic decline continued over the 2000-2009 period as well, at higher rates in the rural (-49 ‰) than in the urban (-37‰) areas. Solving the numerous issues connected with the rural population component calls for strategic, time-stable optimal approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]