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HYDROGEOLOGYCAL DROUGHT BETWEEN NATURAL PHENOMENON AND SOCIAL VULNERABILITY

Ionuţ Minea, Daniel Boicu, Marina Iosub

Abstract

Droughts are a natural phenomenon with a fairly high frequency worldwide. Their evolution generates, through the water deficit, a state of vulnerability at the level of natural and social components. In areas dependent on groundwater resources this vulnerability is transformed in a high social and economic risk. In this situation can be included the eastern part of Romania where over 50% of the population, predominantly in rural areas, is supplied with groundwater. In order to highlight the negative effects of a natural phenomenon such as hydrogeological droughts, the data from 4 hydrogeological wells, compared with data from 4 weather stations to estimate the water deficit, from 1983-2020 were analyzed. The evolution of hydrogeological drought was made using the methodology associated with Standardized Groundwater Index (SGI) and its classifications. The results show a decadal appearance of hydrogeological drought starting with 1986 and continued until 2020. In more than 50% of the analyzed period, hydrogeological droughts were observed in different forms: from extreme drought (3%) to minor drought (22%). The most severe hydrogeological droughts were manifested at the level of 2000, 2007, 2012 and 2020 where SGI values exceeded -3.0 for all hydrogeological wells analyzed. Practically with few exceptions, given the appearance of few rainy years, at this level, the hydrogeological droughts were constantly present in the last decades. The economic and social effects were devastating. The impossibility of water supply from the groundwater of the local rural population generated a number of social problems. In the same time significant damage caused to agricultural production (in an area with an economy based mainly on agriculture) increased the economic and social vulnerability (against the background of other economic problems generated by the transition from a centralized to a market economy). All these factors generate an important migration of the population from this area to the more economically developed regions of western Romania or Europe.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2021/3.1/s12.15

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