Ines GRIGORESCU, Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, Romania
Gheorghe KUCSICSA, Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, Romania
Cristina DUMITRICA, Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, Romania
Bianca MITRICA, Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, Romania
Ana POPOVICI, Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, Romania
Irena MOCANU, Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, Romania
Monica DUMITRASCU, Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, Romania
Catalin CIUBUC, Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, Romania
In the past century, Romania has been characterized by significant landscape transformations mainly related to urban development, a large-scale phenomenon which implies various spatial pattering and growth in relation to certain drivers, i.e., socio-economic, demographic, biophysical. The paper proposes a space-time analysis of urban development (urbanization, industrialization, suburbanization, deindustrialization) over the last century in one of the highly urbanized regions of the country, Romanian Plain. The analysis is made in relation to two key transformation processes the study area has undergone: agricultural development (intensification, extensification, abandonment) and dynamics of natural & semi-natural areas (deforestation, afforestation, water and wetland areas shrinkage/expansion). The investigation was made using multi-temporal materials (Austrian maps, 1912 and topographical maps, 1970), satellite imagery and CORINE Land Cover database (1990, 2006 and 2018).
To identify and understand the local and regional patterns of urban development, a change flows analysis was performed focusing on four periods: 1912-1970, 1970-1990, 1990-2006, 2006-2018 in relation to the main socio-economic and political changes: the first two involving significant changes mostly related to urbanization, industrialization and agricultural development and the last two referring to the post-communist period characterised by the transition to the market economy, the pre- and post-accession to the European Union, economic restructuring (industrial, in particular), sub-urbanization, decentralization, privatization etc.
Overall, the research findings have revealed a change in the urban development pattern in terms of the transformation of the rural landscape into urban built-up as a transition from the compact to the dispersed urban form, i.e., urbanization & suburbanization (urban sprawl) vs. agricultural & abandoned land and natural & semi-natural areas.
Mots clés : urban development patterns|time-space analysis|driving factors|Southern Romania
A103115IG