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THE EFFECTS OF THE ARIDITY PHENOMENON INTENSIFICATION ON THE VEGETAL LAND COVER IN THE EASTERN ROMANIAN PLAIN

Andrei Vrînceanu

Abstract

According to the Aridity Index (R), at the level of the Eastern Romanian Plain have been identified certain areas of aridity intensity, differentiated from the West to the East as a result of the degree of continentalism increasing, which also led to a specific geobotanic zoning (the forest area, the interference between the forest-steppe, ante-steppe and steppe). The degree of vegetation coverage is an objective indicator of susceptibility of soil and/or land to degradation processes, which are manifested on large areas throughout the investigated zone. This indicator is closely related to the complexity level of plant biodiversity, determined on the one hand by the characteristics of the natural environment and climatic conditions (initially the meadows and steppe bushes summed up more than 600 species, the forests, the bushes, and the meso- and hygrophilic meadows of the steppe floodplains - 300 species, palustre, aquatic and halophilic ecosystems - about 1000), as well as by the influence of the anthropogenic factor, which through the intensification of agriculture generated both the reduction of the biodiversity and the degree of vegetation cover of the soils / lands outside the vegetation cycle of the crops. The intensive exploitation of the pedological resource was done by reducing up to the total degradation of the vegetal carpet, the degree of soil covering with vegetation in agroecosystems becoming extremely low (between 2 and 20-25%). In the research carried out the aim was to highlight the consistency between the extension of the aridization process and the reduction of the soil and land coverage corresponding to the natural ecosystems and agroecosystems as a direct consequence of the close connection between the soil type and the current vegetation under which it develops, or on the contrary, under which it can record a continuous degradation.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2018/3.2/s13.071

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