Countries in transition to a market economy exhibit increased regional disparities, leading to differences in the standard of life and in the chances of the population to benefit from the radical socio-economic and political changes. Our aim in this article is to find an index other than the gross domestic product, and maybe a synthetic one, capable of measuring territorial imbalances. In search of such an index, we considered 17 indicators to be

Even though its use has been limited, the DAC statistic, defined as the difference between the empirical distribution for the cases and that of the total sample, presents a great potential in detecting spatial clusters. Our previous work focused on examining its sensitivity to the location of origin and orientation of axes, and on its possible role as an instrument to detect clusters. Results indicate that the DAC statistic does not depend on the

The extensive use of the Geographical Information Systems, but also of their extensions, in fields that do not necessary connect to geography, but allow for the implementation of methodologies based on the analysis of spatially referenced data, had resulted into new applications and methodological approaches to answer specific research questions. This paper proposes such an extension from the real space define by longitude and latitude to a virtual

While cities appeared and disappeared during the history, and different disciplines, such as ecology and geography attempted to model the process from a systemic perspective, the growth of modern cities, particularly under the form of urban sprawl, is an important phenomenon due to its environmental and socioeconomic impacts. CORINE data allow for analyzing the growth of cities based on the changes in land cover and use. This study aimed to assess

A relatively new concept, 'global change', refined over the last decade to account for the energy - land use - climate change nexus, describes all changes induced by the human species and its activities affecting natural ecosystems and their biodiversity. This chapter reviews several research projects carried out within the national boundaries of Romania, all attempting to pinpoint, explain and predict the impact of 'hotspots' showing potential threats

‘Global change’ is a relatively recent concept, related to the energy - land use - climate change nexus, and designated to include all changes produced by the human species and the consequences of its activities over natural ecological complexes and biodiversity. The joint effects of these drivers of change are particularly relevant to understanding the changes of biodiversity. This study overlaps results of previous studies developed in Romania

Long periods should be considered to characterize the dynamics of regional ecosystems complexes. For the European continent, research is advantaged by the existence of CORINE land cover and use data. This study aims to develop a methodology for using CORINE data (periods 1990-2000 and 2000-2006) to assess long-term environmental changes at a regional scale, consisting of identifying common causes and using ordinary kriging to look at the spatial