Quantification of the aridity process in South-Western Romania

The report released by the intergovernmental committee for climate change indicates that romania ranks amongthe top seven countries in europe that would be strongly impacted by aridity in the next few years, with climatechanges consisting in a rise of average annual temperatures by as much as 5°c. the research work was conductedin the south of the oltenia south-western development region, where more than 700,000 hectares of farmland isimpacted by aridification, more than 100,000 hectares among them impacted by aridity. research methodologyencompassed the analysis of average annual temperatures over the time span data was available for, at threeweather stations, an analysis of average annual precipitations, an analysis of the piezometric data, the evolution ofland use as a result of the expansion of the aridity process. the assessment of the aridity process also involvedtaking into consideration the state of the vegetation by means of the normalized difference vegetation index(ndvi), used to assess the quality of the vegetal stratum, an important element in the complex analysis of theterritory. the aridity process is an effect of global warming, and, based on the results of this study, the post-1990escalation of its effects was brought about by socio-economic factors. the destruction of the irrigation systems andprotective forest belts because of the uncertain situation of land ownership are the main factors that contributed toamplification of the effects of aridity on the efficiency of agricultural systems that nowadays are exposed to veryhigh risks.