Volume V, Number 1, 2009

ABSTRACT – The geospatial absorptions are characterized by a specific complexity both in content and in their phenomenological and spatial manifestation fields. Such processes are differentiated according to their specificity to pre-absorption, absorption or post-absorption. The mechanisms that contribute to absorption are extremely numerous: aggregation, extension, diffusion, substitution, resistivity (resilience), stratification, borrowings, etc. Between these mechanisms frequent relations are established determining an amplification of the process and of its regional effects. The installation of the geographic osmosis phenomenon in a given territory (a place for example) leads to a homogenization of the geospatial state and to the installation of the regional homogeneity.

ABSTRACT – The paper presents how economic structural changes affect a region’s economic growth and development. To show this effect is not that easy since changes of economic structure take time, and the result of changes appear shifted in time in the examined regions. Researchers examining reasons of income disparities among countries pay attention to the question how differences of GDP levels and growth rates can be explained by the economic structures. Literature of economic development sets store by explanatory potential of differences in macro-structures in countries within especially for share of agriculture in gross domestic product.

ABSTRACT – The Someş Plateau, situated in the North – North-Western part of the Transylvanian Depression, represents one of the most controversial geographical units as its extension and subunits are concerned. The causes of this aspect are contained in the lithological, morphological, and structural-tectonic differences present in the northern part of the Transylvanian tectonic basin, as well as in the orientation of the spatial interrelation vectors and of their gravitation towards corridors, axes, or polarizing centres, defining for a functional territorial system. The critical analysis of the predecessors’ opinions leads us towards the individualization of the morphologic nucleus of the Someş Plateau, consisting of the Cluj and Dej Hills, as well as the Şimişna Hills, in the arc of the circle shaped by the corridors of the Nadăş (Căpuş) – Someşul Mic – Someş rivers, to which a trans-Someş compartment is attached, made of the Purcăreţ-Boiu Mare Plateau and the Sălătruc Hills. All these subunits gravitate, naturally and anthropically, towards the above-mentioned river corridor, forming a systemic type functional unit.

ABSTRACT – I wish to contribute to the spatial analysis of Europe focusing on the Visegrad Four countries. This paper deals with the economic development of NUTS 2 regions of the named Central European states during the interval 1995-2005. At first, I have given a brief overview of the theories regarding the relationship between the development and territorial inequalities. Thereafter, I have investigated the changes of regional disparities by countries and in time. For a better understanding of the different regional performances, I have grouped the different territories based on the population density and on the economic division. I aimed at proving the existence of the “trade off” phenomenon concerning the regional development; and the changing of the “west-east incline”. Finally, I have drawn a conclusion from the outcomes of the analysis.

ABSTRACT –After determining the development index at commune level, we have managed to sketch 4 advantaged areas and 3 disadvantaged ones. The most advantaged area is individualized around the county seat Baia Mare, the rest of the advantaged areas revolving around Sighetu-Marmaţiei, Borşa-Vişeu and Târgu Lapuş towns. The disadvantaged areas correspond mostly with the rural settlements situated afar from the high-polarizing centers at the county level (Baia Mare and Sighetu-Marmaţiei). This study reiterates the enormous discrepancy between the rural and urban areas, but also between the county seat city and all the other urban settlements. Maramureş County is situated somewhere at the lowest point in the counties hierarchy, not only because of its limited extension and of the precarious condition of the physical and social infrastructure, but also because of the chronic lack of investment in this area. Economically, Maramureş is characterized by a domination of the population employed in agriculture (the number of which has grown between the years 1990 and 2007, from 5% to 38%), in conjunction with a decrease in the number of population employed in the secondary sector (from 60% to 27%).

ABSTRACT – In the Southern Apuseni Mountains, mining activities have taken place since Antiquity, leaving their marks upon the natural environment, the aquatic one inclusively. If the traditional technologies had a low impact upon the aquatic environment, the ones in the modern period have affected it up to the “dead water” level. It is about the disorganization of the hydrographical basins and especially about aggressive pollution of surface waters with some of the most toxic chemical substances such as cyanides, as well as by an increase in the contents of metallic ions, chlorides, sulphides, sulphates, suspensions and fixed residuum. The decrease in pH, and implicitly the acidification of waters, is also remarkable. It must be mentioned that no systematic studies of the impact of mining activities upon the aquatic environment have been conducted in the area in the last years. In these conditions, the data about water quality have been taken over from the studies conducted by author between 1996 and 1998. The cause of the lack of concern in the field is no other but the cease in ore valorization activities in the majority of the mining objectives in the area. As none of the tailings settling ponds has guard canals, the direct pluvial waters and the ones drained from the slopes transport tailings with noxes which they subsequently discharge in the local pluvial network. In these conditions, both the quality of the mine waters which run freely into the emissary and of the ones that flow from the waste dumps remain mainly in the qualitative parameters analyzed and presented in the study.

ABSTRACT – The study of regional underdevelopment has been, during the last few decades, the main issue in fields such sociology and economic sciences that have mainly used subjective approaches and research methods, such as surveys and queries. By using integrated mathematical coefficients and a comprehensible transparent map base, the main interest of the present paper is to reconcile the methods and instruments of modern-day geography with the classical methods of social sciences, finally proving that underdevelopment is a geographically-induced phenomenon, as well as creating new geographies itself.

ABSTRACT – “The Land of the Moţi” is a regional geographical entity where the impact of the anthropic component is essential. If, for a long period, the population has been a cohesion factor in the birth of this regional system, at present, by means of the negative features of the demographical indicators, the population stands out by inducing several elements of high risk. The massive emigration of the population, especially from the areas of high altitude, the gentrification process, the low degree of economic development, are all serious problems which must be on the agenda of the decision-making political factors.

ABSTRACT – The present study proposes a systemic analysis which will determine the structure of inequalities, medical-sanitary disparities in the North-West Development Region. The methodological focus of our study falls on the medical-sanitary resources with a higher interest on the medical-sanitary infrastructure of this regional space. In order to highlight the “map” of the medical-sanitary disparities in the North-West Development Region we have operated an inventory of medical-sanitary resources and a demographical-based evaluation, thus coming to an outcome of a quantity-quality complex analysis.

ABSTRACT – The present paper aims at identifying the disparities in the spatial distribution of financial intermediaries by taking as case-study a specific territorial unit, namely Cluj County. The knowledge of the number and location of financial intermediaries has importance in understanding the complex functionality of the territory, as well as in the complex process of territorial management, since there is a close linkage between the presence and the activity of the different financial institutions and economic and social development. The analysis is focused on the following financial intermediaries: monetary financial institutions, other financial intermediaries, insurance companies and pension funds. The interpreted data, the calculated indicators (such as the number of banks per 1,000 inhabitants, the number of ATMs per 1,000 inhabitants) and the cartographic materials indicate a high concentration of financial intermediaries in Cluj-Napoca, a slight diversity in the other five towns of the county and low presence or even their absence in rural area.