LAND COVER AND USE CHANGES FOCUSED ON THE URBANIZATION PROCESSES IN ROMANIA

Given the spatial dimension of urban (urbanization, deurbanization, urban restructuring etc.) and industrial (exploitation of natural resources) processes, Coordination of Information on the Environment Programme (CORINE) data provide an image of land cover/use dynamics in territorial statistical units - administrative units and development regions. This study employed ordinary kriging interpolation to depict how these processes are reflected at macro-scale changes in land cover and use. Results indicate that areas affected by any kind of land cover changes predominate in the South-West Region (especially Mehedinti and Gorj counties), while areas affected by land use changes in the urban areas concentrate in the Oriental Carpathians (counties Suceava, Harghita, Covasna, Bacau, and Neamt). Urbanization seems to cluster in the South-East, but also in spaces situated at the limits of the development regions South-East, Center, North-East, and North West. Deurbanization explains land use changes in the South-West and West Regions. The results indicate that anthropic pressures on natural systems are the driving force of environmental dynamics. Methodologically, the study underlines the potential of using kriging to assess environmental changes and their consequences over land use.