The impact of climatic and non-climatic factors on land surface temperature in southwestern Romania

Land surface temperature is one of the most important parameters related to global warming. It depends mainly on soil type, discontinuous vegetation cover, or lack of precipitation. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between high LST, synoptic conditions and air masses trajectories, vegetation cover, and soil type in one of the driest region in Romania. In order to calculate the land surface temperature and normalized difference vegetation index, five satellite images of LANDSAT missions 5 and 7, covering a period of 26 years (1986–2011), were selected, all of them collected in the month of June. The areas with low vegetation density were derived from normalized difference vegetation index, while soil types have been extracted from Corine Land Cover database. HYSPLIT application was employed to identify the air masses origin based on their backward trajectories for each of the five study cases. Pearson, logarithmic, and quadratic correlations were used to detect the relationships between land surface temperature and observed ground temperatures, as well as between land surface temperature and normalized difference vegetation index. The most important findings are: strong correlation between land surface temperature derived from satellite images and maximum ground temperature recorded in a weather station located in the area, as well as between areas with land surface temperature equal to or higher than 40.0 °C and those with lack of vegetation; the sandy soils are the most prone to high land surface temperature and lack of vegetation, followed by the chernozems and brown soils; extremely severe drought events may occur in the region.     

Multi‐kilometre long pathway of geofluids migration: Clues concerning an ophiolite serpentinization setting possibly responsible for the inferred abiotic provenance of methane in thermal water outflows of the South‐West Carpathians (Romania)

Methane occurrences displaying signatures of a possible abiotic origin had previously been reported in the South‐West Carpathians (Romania). Such an accumulation, at Tisovi?a, was intercepted by a well drilled in an ophiolitic rocks massif, whereas in two other localities—situated tens of kilometres faraway—the concerned methane is released via thermal groundwater outflows that are apparently not associated with any ultramafic products. By using groundwater ionic compositions, corroborated with previously published isotopic (¹³C‐CH₄, ²H‐CH₄, ³He/⁴He) and molecular gas analyses, we assessed in more detail the conjectured abiotic provenance of methane, and quantitatively investigated the hypothesis of a progressive mixing between two, abiotic and thermogenic, methane end‐members. The corresponding geofluids behaviour was modelled by hypothesizing a “concealed” ophiolite serpentinization setting (largely similar to that at Tisovi?a), whose abiotic methane production was “diverted” towards remote discharges at ground surface, via a ~20‐km‐long flowpath supposedly generated by recently operating extensional tectonics.     

The impact of heat waves on surface urban heat island and local economy in Cluj-Napoca city,Romania

The association between heat waves and the urban heat island effect can increase the impact on environment and society inducing biophysical hazards. Heat stress and their associated public health problems are among the most frequent. This paper explores the heat waves impact on surface urban heat island and on the local economy loss during three heat periods in Cluj-Napoca city in the summer of 2015. The heat wave events were identified based on daily maximum temperature, and they were divided into three classes considering the intensity threshold: moderate heat waves (daily maximum temperature exceeding the 90th percentile), severe heat waves (daily maximum temperature over the 95th percentile), and extremely severe heat waves (daily maximum temperature exceeding the 98th percentile). The minimum length of an event was of minimum three consecutive days. The surface urban heat island was detected based on land surface temperature derived from Landsat 8 thermal infrared data, while the economic impact was estimated based on data on work force structure and work productivity in Cluj-Napoca derived from the data released by Eurostat, National Bank of Romania, and National Institute of Statistics. The results indicate that the intensity and spatial extension of surface urban heat island could be governed by the magnitude of the heat wave event, but due to the low number of satellite images available, we should consider this information only as preliminary results. Thermal infrared remote sensing has proven to be a very efficient method to study surface urban heat island, due to the fact that the synoptic conditions associated with heat wave events usually favor cloud free image. The resolution of the OLI_TIRS sensor provided good results for a mid-extension city, but the low revisiting time is still a drawback. The potential economic loss was calculated for the working days during heat waves and the estimated loss reached more than 2.5 mil. EUR for each heat wave day at city scale, cumulating more than 38 mil. EUR for the three cases considered.     

Modelling the occurrence of gullies at two spatial scales in the Olteţ Drainage Basin (Romania)

Gully erosion is both a significant natural hazard and an important sediment source. The design of proper prevention measures relies firstly on the prediction of the future locations of gullies. But, as recent progress has shown, methods and results in any environmental modelling greatly depend upon scale, the selection of which should be based on management needs. This research deals with predicting the spatial potential for gullying at two different scales grouped in a top-down framework, i.e. starting with a preliminary, regional scale analysis (1:100,000–1:200,000) to develop a simplified model, and performing a more detailed, intermediate level analysis at a medium scale (1:25,000–1:50,000) for the basin sector revealed as the most threatened by the process. At the same time, the study searches for relationships among: scale of analysis, area of investigation, precision and accuracy of input data, and the quality of expected results and their applicability. The study area is the Olteţ Drainage Basin (2439 km²) in southern Romania, which extends over four landform types: mountains, hills, a plateau (piedmont) and a plain. Aiming to investigate the scale effect, the same statistical method is selected for both analyses, namely Classification and Regression Trees (CART). Scale-adapted procedures and resolutions are applied for defining the dependent variable, deriving the environmental attributes and deciding the sampling strategy needed to provide information for the statistical analyses. In order to detect the degree of gullying at the regional scale, the statistical method is used over the entire basin, and gully density is selected as the target variable. For the analysis of gully susceptibility at the medium scale, within the most affected area of the Olteţ Basin identified as the piedmont sector, the single gully and the intensely gullied spot are defined as the target variables. The best validated maps obtained at the two scales are compared. The results reveal that both individual maps are characterized by statistical accuracy (a NRMSE value of 0.05–0.08 and an AUC of 0.86 for the regional scale and the medium scale models, respectively). Yet, the regional scale map is affected by high uncertainties when compared to the medium scale one. The scale dependency of results and hence the relative nature of their accuracy and reliability are highlighted in the context of both fundamental and applied research.