Abstract
Changes in land use and agricultural landscapes are primarily the result of socio-political and economic changes. This research is based on the analysis of old maps, pertaining to different historical periods, aiming to capture the dynamics of the landscape in the Central Bărăgan Plain. The cartographic materials used have the Map of Southern Romania from 1864, the Firing Master Plans and the Corine Land Cover dataset (1990, 2000, 2018) as reference. For the case studies, these sources are supplemented by the orthophotoplan from 2012 and the remotely-sensed image acquired by Corona satellites in 1974. The results highlight the fact that between 1864 and 2018, the Central Bărăgan Plain recorded important changes in land resources. The most significant transformations took place in the period between 1864 and 1959, when 58% of the plain area was purposed for another use in that large areas of land were introduced in the agricultural use. If in 1864 the agricultural lands represented less than half (196.896 ha) of the Central Bărăgan area, the natural areas being dominant (201.473 ha), in the first half of the 20th century, they increased exponentially (361.674 ha), the natural vegetation occupying much smaller areas (28.481 ha) mainly along the Ialomița and Călmățui rivers and near lakes. This trend is also expressed by the values of the index of naturalness which shows a drastic decrease, from 51.7% in 1864, to 10.6% in 1916–1959. There is also an increase of the area cover by settlements which should be explained by the occurrence of new villages and the increase in size of the existing villages. Another result of the approach concerns the changes that occurred in the agricultural landscape in the middle, respectively at the end of the 20th century, which is a fact quantified by computing the index of land fragmentation. The dynamics of land use and the changes in the features of the agricultural landscape, as far as the analyzed area is concerned, are due to the agrarian reforms pertaining to different historical periods, as well as to the forced relocations during the communist regime. Therefore, the study aims to highlight changes during historical, socio-economic and political time in land use and to reduce the degree of naturalness of the territory at the same time.
Highlights
Land use was considered a local environmental issue, its importance as a global problem is increasing
Materials and Methods The evaluation of the landscape dynamics in the Central Bărăgan Plain involved the use of old maps, pertaining to different historical periods
In order to cover the entire territory of Central Bărăgan, we downloaded over 350 frames from the original map sheets
Summary
Land use was considered a local environmental issue, its importance as a global problem is increasing. Grasslands and urban areas have extended at a global scale in the last few decades, while simultaneously, energy, water and fertilizer consumption has considerably increased, and biodiversity has suffered substantial loss [1,2]. Changes in land plowing have doubled wheat harvests, which have increased in the past 40 years by approximately two billion tons per year. This growth could be partially attributed to the global expansion of farmland by approximately 12%, and to technology development which led to the “Green Revolution”, including high yield crops, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, advancements in mechanization and irrigation techniques. During the past 40 years, there has been a significant increase related to the global use of fertilizers by approx. During the past 40 years, there has been a significant increase related to the global use of fertilizers by approx. 700%, as well as a growth of irrigation networks being deployed on cropland, by approx. 70% [3]
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