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Land Use and Human Pressure in the Getic Piedmont

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 Land Use and Human Pressure in the Getic Piedmont
Ana Popovici, Dan Bălteanu, Monica Dumitraşcu, Mihaela Sima
Romanian Academy, Institute of Geography
Bucharest, ROMANIA

Abstract
The Getic Piedmont is a transitional unit between the Subcarpathians and the lowland plain in the
southern part of Romania. It covers 13,820 km2 between the rivers Danube (in the west) and Dâmboviţa
(in the east). Regional differences have engendered several types of units in terms of the nature of rocks,
altitude and degree of fragmentation. Each relief unit has its own particular features shaped by land use,
and the dynamics and intensity of degradation processes. Being a heavily populated region the
environment is subjected to severe human pressure - deforestation, farming and a dense network of
communication routes. The aim of this paper has been to analyse the main land use changes and their
impact on the degradation of grounds, as well as the characteristic features that differentiate each of these
hilly divisions. The post-1990 restructuring processes had a big, sometimes negative, impact on land use
(forest clearing, terrain fragmentation, inadequate farming practices, etc.). However, other factors, too
(usually landslides, gully erosion and sheet erosion), have contributed to enlarging the degraded areas.
As damaging proved to be the extreme climatic and hydrological phenomena such as floods, with
disastrous effects on vast stretches of agricultural land, settlements, routes of communication and terrains
of various destinations. The data sources this paper is based on are the 1990-2007 statistical figures,
Corine land Cover data-base for 1990, 2000 and 2006, geomorphological maps and maps of present-day
processes (GIS-based landslide susceptibility map), flood hazard maps and field surveys of significant
areas.

Keywords: land use, land degradation, human pressure, Getic Piedmont, natural and technological
hazards

Introduction
The degradation of land and the changes occurred in their use have been focusing geographical and
environmental research with practical application to agriculture and territorial planning, in particular.
Studying these aspects is the more important as new challenges posed by climate change, the
intensification of extreme phenomena and human impact on the environment are accumulating imposing
adequate sustainable land management measures.
Human activity over time, involving also land-use changes have had a major impact on the quality of the
environmental factors in the Getic Piedmont. Modifications in the use of land, e.g. conversion from one
category to another (forests or meadows turned into cropland, etc.), has led to the degradation of vegetal
associations, the almost total destruction of the wild flora and fauna in areas suitable to cultivation, at the
same time enhancing erosional processes.
Land use has been seriously influenced by urbanisation, as agricultural production started being adapted
to the demand of the urban population, and by industrialisation, a major source of pollution and land
degradation. Industrial development and the expansion of the urban have significantly contributed to the
rural population, living in the surroundings of towns, to move in there.
As from 1989, the year that marked the downfall of the communist regime in this country, Romania has
experienced a series of radical transformations in all the fields of activity. Agriculture was one of the first
economic branches strongly affected by the restructuring process, due to fundamental changes in the type
of land ownership, a situation that has implicitly engendered new types of land degradation.
The main causes which impaired the quality of land were excessive fragmentation of the agricultural
terrains, the high ratio of subsistence farms, inadequate farming practices, poor fertilisation, arbitrary use
of fertilisers and pesticides, weakly mechanised works, intensification of extreme climatic phenomena
(droughts, floods and landslides), and the human impact on the environment (deforestation, mining and
processing industries, etc.).

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Study area
The Getic Piedmont represents an area of transition between the Subcarpathians and the plain in the
southern part of Romania. It covers 13,820 km2 between the Danube (west) and the Dâmboviţa (east)
rivers (Fig. 1). In the north, it is separated from the Getic Subcarpathians by zig-zagging alignment of
cuestas moving northwards on summits and retreating southwards in the valleys. The southern line
delimiting it from the Oltenia Plain (a sub-unit of the Romanian Plain) is also uneven, with the Danube
terraces in the west, or the piedmont plains in the east.

Figure 1. Geographical position of the Getic Piedmont

The Getic Piedmont is part of the vast Getic Depression, situated south of the Carpathian Mountains, in
which a stack of rocks, thousands of meters thick, lies at the origin (end of the Pleistocene) of the present
piedmont. The Wallachian movements of Carpathian uplift would exondate and turn this unit into a
landform subjected to intense erosion, distinctively different in the north from the south of the Piedmont.
The northern part is dominated by boulders and coarse gravels, with small-sized gravels, fine loamy
sands in the south. Hence, erosion-induced degradation takes on a variety of forms. Fluvio-lacustrine
deposits overlay the Mio-Pliocene deposits represented mainly by gravels, marts, clays and sands.
The relief presents long, north-south-oriented Piedmont summits resulting from the fragmentation of the
initial piedmont surface by the drainage network. The northern interfluves look like rounded summits
gradually extending to the south, forming true 6 – 8 m-high benches. Altitude keeps decreasing from north
to south, from over 700 m in the Piedmont hills east of the Olt River down to 90 – 100 m in the south.
The range of unconsolidated sedimentary rocks and the high relief index have favoured a swift evolution
of slopes subjected to intense dynamics, with active slope processes decreasing in frequency and
intensity from north to south as interfluves widen and the relief index is lower. Mass movements and deep-
seated erosion are specific to the north, while surface erosion or stable, undegraded surfaces are seen
mainly in the south.
Mineral resources are represented mainly by mineral fuel deposits (hydrocarbons and lower coals) and
salt. Oil and gas accumulations are found in the Olteţ Piedmont, Cotmeana Piedmont and Cândeşti
Piedmont. Lignite is exploited in the north, in the Motru Piedmont (Motru – Drăgăneşti - Rovinari area) and
in the central part, in the Olteţ Piedmont (Târgu Cărbuneşti - Roşia).

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The Getic Piedmont is an intensely populated area, with over 2,400,000 inhabitants (2007). Its attractive
natural and economic potential have led to steady population growth and enlargement of the settlement
network.
As its population kept growing, human pressure on the environment would increase, too, a characteristic
of densely populated areas. Highest density values (over 200 inh./km2) are found in the urban centres and
the neighbouring settlements (Fig. 2), with 50 – 150 inh./km2 alongside the main valleys (Olt, Argeş and
Jiu). Low values (under 50 inh./km2) has the central part of the Piedmont, far from the influence of town
and of the main communication routes, besides, villagers use to leave the countryside and settle in the
large cities (Craiova, Drobeta Turnu-Severin, etc.) and in neighboring towns (Piteşti, Slatina, Râmnicu
Vâlcea, etc.).

Figure 2. Population density in the Getic Piedmont (2007)

Land use and human pressure in the Getic Piedmont

In terms of land use, the Getic Piedmont forms a transitional step between the Subcarpathians (in the
north) and the lowland plain (in the south), land use being specific to both.
The natural background (relief, soil, climate, waters and vegetation) its features could be favourable or
restrictive for certain categories of uses. The main relief features (a steady north-to-south decrease of
altitude, much fragmentation in the north and considerable widening of benches of divide in the central
and southern parts), as well as soils, climate and waters have led to difference in use between the north
(pastures and natural hay-fields, orchards and forests) and the south (arable terrains and vine-yards on
slopes with a south and south-east aspect) (Fig. 3).
All of the Getic Piedmont belongs to the foliated forest belt. However, deforestation and the fallowing of
natural hay-fields to make room for cropland would continually change its aspect, mainly in late the 19th
and early 20th centuries (Piemontul Getic, 1970). So, the agricultural area has become by far larger than
the forest area. In 2006, 57.2% of the whole Piedmont was farmland and 33.3% was forest land (Fig. 4).
Agricultural terrains include arable land (75.7%), pastures and natural hay-fields (12.01%), vine-yards and
wine-nurseries (5.87%), orchards and fruit-tree nurseries (6.42%) (Fig. 5).

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 Figure 3. Land cover/Land use in the Getic Piedmont, 2006
Source: Corine Land Cover, 2006

0.6% 0.6%
7.3%
1.1%
12.0%

6.4%

5.9%

33.3%
57.2%

Agricultural land 75.7%

Forests
Water-covered areas
Buit-up areas Arable Vine-yards Orchards Pastures and hay-fields
Mineral extraction sites, Dump sites, Construction sites
Other uses

Figure 4. Land cover/land use structure, 2006 Figure 5. Structure of agricultural land, 2006

Human-induced land degradation

Among the factors of land degradation in the Getic Piedmont most important are excessive fragmentation
of the agricultural terrains after 1990, very numerous subsistence farms, poor and arbitrary fertilisation of
crops, accidental pollution from economic activities, etc. The major stresses induced by these factors are
the following: accelerated erosion by water (present-day geomorphological processes), acidity increase,
alkalinisation, destruction of soil structure, loss of organic matter, etc. Some of these aspects have been
analysed for the whole Piedmont, others only for one of its sub-units, Cotmeana Piedmont.
Excessive fragmentation of agricultural terrains. The result of a change in the type of property (Land Law
18/1991) was the steady degradation of the quality of land and the failure to practice sustainable and
competitive farming. The enactment of this law meant that over 4 million owners received back their land.
The area/owner consists of several plots depending on terrain configuration, fertility and the position of
crops in the field. Estimators put existing plots in Romania to over 15 million, most of them (42%) below 2
hectares.
In 1990, nearly 52% of this Piedmont’s arable area was divided into very large plots (over 50 ha), 31% of
the total were small plots (under 2 ha, 2 – 5 ha), and over 16% were larger than 5 – 50 hectares.

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After the Land Law 18/1991 came into effect most of the arable area (over 60%) was divided into very
small plots (under 2 ha), the proportion of large and very large plots (5 – 50 ha and over 50 ha)
decreasing considerably, down to 27% of the overall arable surface (Fig. 6a, 6b).
That very many plots (under 2 ha) in the north of Cotmeana Piedmont are small is due also to the natural
background, that is to high fragmentation of relief, to soils and climate which are restrictive factors. Small
patches are seen scattered among village households, or on the narrow benches of divide and on some
slopes, interspread among pastures and forests. Larger plots extend along the main rivers – the Olt, the
Argeş and the Topolog, as well as in the better-developed floodplains of some local rivers (Vedea, Vediţa,
Cotmeana, etc.).

a. b.

20,4% 17,1%

52,7% 10,9%
10,4%
66,8%
16,5%
5,2%

>2 2 - 5. 5. - 50 < 50 >2 2 - 5. 5. - 50 < 50

Figure 6. Arable lands before and after land Law 18/1991 came into effect in the Cotmeana Piedmont,
a) 1990, b) 2000
Source: Landsat 5TM 1990 and Landsat 7ETM+ 2000 sattelite images

Environmental factors in the south of the Piedmont (landform, soil, climate, etc.) are suitable for arable
terrains to be amassed into large plots. However, the fact that the arable area is excessively crumbled is
the direct consequence of the deficient application of the Land Law.
Excessive parcelling, which generated the small plots, is a drawback, with negative impact on production,
productivity, costs, efficiency and competition.
The multitude of subsistence farms. Reform in agriculture engendered new types of the farmer’s
economic-social organisation based on private property. An important place is held by individual farms
and much less by juristic person units.
Farm size (overall agricultural area and agricultural area used) is important for efficiently using the terrain.
What characterises Romanian agriculture is, among other things, the predominance of small and very

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small farms, owned by poorly educated, elderly people who moreover have little money. Therefore, using
new production technologies, efficient management and marketing procedures liable to making agriculture
more productive and competitive is all but impossible. Most individual farms practice subsistence
agriculture, the products being destined to the farmer’s own consumption needs.
In 2002, most of the 71,721 farms in the Cotmeana Piedmont were privately owned (99.5%). The
agricultural surface used was of 111,419.56 ha, that is 65.8% of the overall agricultural terrain used.
Juristic person units represented a mere 0.5% of the total, and possessed 57,803.50 ha (34.1%) (Table
1).
Table 1. Farms, total area and area used under the judicial status of agricultural exploitations, 2002
Total agricultural area (ha)
Total (ha) Individual farms Juristic person units

188,356.29 129,223.32 59,132.97

% 68.6 31.3
Agricultural area used (ha)
16,9223.06 111,419.56 57,803.50
% 65.8 34.1
Source: Agricultural Census, INS, 2002

The average agricultural area/individual farm is 1.8 ha, the are used averaging 1.5 ha. The average
agricultural area/individual farm is below one hectare in the settlements situated in the north-east of the
Piedmont (e.g. Bascov, Merişani and Băbana). Over 56% of settlements in the Cotmeana Piedmont have
individual farms of 1-2 ha, on average, the majority founed in the north of the Piedmont where, given the
high fragmentation of relief, agricultural lands cover small areas. The communes located in the central and
southern parts have farms of more than 2 ha and over 3 ha even (e.g. Coloneşti and Oporelu) (Fig. 7).

hectares

number

Figure 7. Individual farms, Figure 8. Average agricultural area

number and average area/farm , 2002 used/individual farm, 2002
Source: processed after statistical data, INS, 2002

A similar territorial distribution shows also the second indicator, namely, the average agricultural area
used. Noteworthy, individual farms using an average area under 1.5 ha are characteristic of almost all the
north-Piedmont settlements, over 2 ha being common to 21% only of the central and southern area (Fig.
8).

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The very large number of small farms (under 5 ha agricultural area used by an individual farm, and the
dominantly self-consumption character of this category, makes it impossible for these farms to be
competitive and use the agricultural terrain in a sustainable manner.
Poor and/or arbitrary fertilisation of crops. One of the major causes behind the agro-chemical deterioration
of the soil is the excess, or insufficient use of chemical fertilisers. In this case, the soil, and surface and
ground waters could be contaminated with various chemicals (e.g. nitrates), or soils may become short of
nutrients (phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen and humus). The decrease and degradation of organic matter,
as well as soil pollution have long-term detrimental effects, the soils becoming more vulnerable to
acidification, alkalinisation, salinisation, etc.
Characteristic of Romanian agriculture is, among others, the insufficient quantity of fertilisation sprayed,
alarmingly small in certain areas. The absence of statistical data/farm (NUTS 5) makes it difficult to assess
exact quantities. Also contributing to the agro-chemical degradation of soils is arbitrary management,
disregard of specialist studies reporting optimal doses, period of administration for the cultivated plants
and necessary soil nutrients. Thus, the random use of nitrogen fertilisers did but enhance acidification, soil
and water pollution and the extension of degraded areas.
A study conducted in the Getic Piedmont by the ICPA (Research Institute for Soil Science and
Agrochemistry) in 2003 and updated in 2008 shows that nitrate pollution from agricultural sources occur
on the territories of 209 communes (NUTS 5), the vulnerable area ranging from 1,764 ha (Oboga
Commune, Olt County) and 16,503 ha (Scorniceşti Town, Olt County) (Fig. 9).

Figure 9. Areas prone to nitrate pollution, 2008

Source: Research Institute for Soil Science and Agrochemistry, 2008

Degradation induced by present-day geomorphological processes (landslides and erosion). Landslides in

the Getic Piedmont take on a variety of forms, their distribution being controlled mainly by lithology, slope
declivity and precipitation. The largest slide-affected areas are seen on hills of clays and marls with
intercallations of sand in subsidiary.
Sheet and gully erosion. The characteristic features of the relief, geological make-up (mostly alternations
of sands, clayey sands, marls and gravels) differentiate the manifestation of present-day modelling
processes from north to south. The frequency and intensity of slope processes, fairly active in the north,
decrease southwards as interfluves widen and local relief drops. Instead, surface erosion, altghough
stable, and degradation-free areas prevail here.
Present-day relief modelling processes, very active in its northern part (gullying, rilling, sheet wash, etc.),
are severely degrading the slopes; on the benches of divide dynamics is less intense, sheet erosion being
the dominant feature; characteristic of channel-bed and floodplain processes are accumulation and

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frequent bank erosion; apart from the natural factors (climate, landform, rock and vegetation), man is
significantly involved in the development of gullying (deforestations, excess grazing, plouging along the
slope, plowing the permanent pastures and hay-fields, building roads on slope, etc.).
Technological hazards. Some of the technological hazards in the Getic Piedmont, resulting in soil
degradation and affecting the population, come from the chemical industry (accidental pollution with
hydrocarbons and other dangerous substances), the mining industry, damage to hydrotechnical
structures, road-and-rail accidents, damage to pipes transporting various substances, fires or explosions.
The chemical industry releases some dangerous chemicals into the environment, in concentrations with
long, medium and short-term effects on the ecological balance; it is the case of chlorine from the Slatina
Works and of ammonium from Drobeta Turnu-Severin and Turceni (Fig. 11).
Accidental pollution with hydrocarbons and other hazardous substances is most often the result of
inadequate technological design in the power industry (thermal power-stations), of mining activities (waste
dumps, tailings dams), or of the iron-and-steel industry; accidents may also happen along hydrocarbon
distribution and transport networks. The latter are more common in the oil drilling and processing areas of
Olteţ, Cotmeana and Cândeşti Piedmonts. The intensification of oil exploitations has entailed
environmental degradation proportional to the extent of exploitation, affecting primarly the soil by polluting
them with oil products or brine actually accompanying this industry. The soil may be polluted also
accidentally as the distribution pipes of oil and oil products are heavily damaged.

Figure 11. Technologiocal hazards

All technological processes (exploitation and preparation) connected with the mining industry have a
severe environmental impact, causing significant damage to the terrestrial surface (anthropic relief) by
impairing the quality of the environmental factors (water, air and soil), people’s health, destroying plants
and animals. In the Getic Piedmont, coal is traditionally exploited and consequently the anthropic relief is
quite visible (underground pits, quarries, tailings dams) in the north-east of the Getic Piedmont (Motru-
Rovinari area) and in the central part of the Olteţ Piedmont.
Damage to the hydrotechnical structures occurs especially on the large rivers on which water reservoirs
exists (the Olt and the Arges) which cross the Piedmont, works like damming, bank consolidation and
correction of the torrents along some rivers also contribute to it.

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The likelihood for fires and explosions to burst out may come from vulnerable buildings located inside
industrial areas and from some unprotected units, the misuse of some installations, forested areas
potentially prone to experiencing under certain weather conditions, and moreover so where water sources
are missing, or people prove careless. These hazards are specific to industrial towns from the southern
end of the Piedmont: Drobeta Turnu-Severin, Craiova, Slatina, Piteşti and Mioveni.
Air, road-and-rail, or sea accidents, with loss of life and important damage for the transport companies,
represent another type of hazard.

Conclusions
The changes that marked the transition period (a new type of property, of land exploitation, and severe
fragmentation of agricultural land), as well as low mechanisation of farming works, poor development of
land improvement systems, depleted crop fertility, etc. have all added to enhancing land degradation,
negatively affecting productive capacity and subsistence farming. The Getic Piedmont suffers also from
the industrial activity discharged on the outskirts of the Piedmont, the towns of Piteşti, Slatina and Rovinari
(iron-and-steel, petrochemical, machine building, extractive and other industries).
There are several areas in the Piedmont undergoing severe degradation (Fig. 11). One is the north-
eastern part (Motru Piedmont), where lands are impaired by the coal industry, by high susceptibility to
landsliding and gully erosion. Other areas surround the southern cities (Drobeta Turnu-Severin, Craiova,
Slatina and Piteşti-Mioveni), with their range of polluting industries, household and industrial waste sites,
and oil residue. Pollution from oil residue is registered east of the Jiu River (drilling fields and a dense
network of oil and brine transport). An acute problem is the frequent and uncontrolled dumping of
domestic refuse on the river banks, or in some steeps at the edge of the forest or inside it.
Looking at the main degradation processes spread out in the territory, it emerges that sheet gully erosion
and landslides predominate in the northern part of the Piedmont, lower erosion but mostly anthropic soil
compactation and acidification being characteristic of the south, where large agricultural lands exist. The
area suffers also from prolonged drought, and because irrigation are missing, yearly yields are notably
fewer.
After 1990, global climate warming and change in the use of land intensified extreme climatic phenomena
(draughts, floods and landslides). At the same time, erosional processes becoming severer, certain areas
are undergoing serious land degradation.

BALWOIS 2010 - Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia - 25, 29 May 2010 9

 Acknowledgements
The study is developed in the framework of the FP7 – Building Capacity for Black Sea Catchment
Obsrvation and Assessment System supporting Sustainable Development (EnviroGRIDS); Project.
Coordinator: Université de Genève (UNIGE), Switzerland; http://www.envirogrids.net/.

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