THE INFLUENCE OF THE ALTITUDE GRADIENT IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF GRASSLANDS, CENTRAL ELEMENTS IN THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL AREAS. CASE STUDY.

If we refer to the sustainable development of a territory, it can be stated that the natural resources and implicitly the land resources, occupy the central place within this process, in this case, the land use can be seen as an "indicator" element of the trends of the process of sustainable development. The specialized literature shows, in various studies, the direct and indirect influence of the relief on the way of land use, implicitly on the distribution of grasslands, through altitude, slope or morphometric characteristics. In this context, the paper aims, in a holistic approach, to make an analysis of the distribution of grassland areas on altitudinal floors to quantify their share in relation to other categories of land use, depending on specific local factors (natural and anthropogenic). Two regions were selected that extend over an altitude range of approx. 1200 m, from 200 m, in the depression area, to 1340 m, in the mountain area, located in western Romania. The distribution of land use categories, respectively grassland areas, was analyzed in the GIS environment, based on Corine Land Cover data. The overlay analysis found that the grasslands are distributed on all defined altitudinal floors, in different environmental conditions, but their proportion is different, depending on local conditions. Differences were also found in the occupation of the space: in the low area, the grasslands are found on fragmented areas, interspersed with arable land and in the hilly and mountainous areas, the areas of grasslands are larger, compact, positioned at the edge of the forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]