The complex hydrotechnic structure in Banat hydrographical area.

Banat hydrographical area benefits of important water resources but also of a complex hydrotechnics planning, represented by a series of permanent and in permanent accumulations, several derivation channels, long segments of rivers dammed and a strong link between the Timiș river and Bega river, which are the main rivers in the area, given by the two channels transferring water from one river to the other and vice-versa. In this paper, after describing the characteristics of Banat hydrographical area and management works of waters from this hydrographical system, we realize an analysis regarding the major water management schemes. In the end of the paper, there are presented the conclusions referring to the management and the utility of water management works from the Banat hydrographical area

Encountering the Victims of Romanian Communism: Young People and Empathy in a Memorial Museum

Many states in post-communist East-Central Europe have established memorial museums which aim to tell the story of suffering under the communist regime. They also seek to encourage visitors to develop empathy for the victims of communist repression.This paper explores the responses of a group of young people to a memorial museum in Romania (Sighet Memorial Museum), focusing on how these visitors experienced empathy for the victims of communist-era violence. Data were collected using focus groups. Most participants showed a degree of empa- thy for the victims of suffering but this was usually shallow in nature. However some visitors displayed more“active” empathy (characterized by deeper imaginative and cogni- tive engagement). The paper explores how both the design and environment of the museum and the back- ground experiences of visitors influenced the develop- ment of empathy. It argues that empathy is not an automatic response to suffering and instead can be con- sidered as an interaction between the design of the museum and the background knowledge of visitors. The paper argues that empathy is an important means for young people to participate in remembering the commu- nist period, and is a means to make“prosthetic”memories of an authoritarian past which they have not experienced first-hand

Education and post-communist transitional justice: negotiating the communist past in a memorial museum

This paper examines the role of education within post-communist transitional justice. It focuses on the ways in which young Romanians negotiate the communist past during an educational visit to a memorial museum. The museum enabled these visitors to better understand the repression of the communist era, had limited impact in changing their attitudes towards communism, but it did provoke reflection upon and comparison between the present and the communist past. Visitors recognized the role of the museum as a site of memory within post-communist transitional justice, but were also critically aware of the limitations to what the museum could achieve. The implications of these findings for postcommunist transitional justice are examined

Water Pollution and Water Quality Assessment of Major Transboundary Rivers from Banat (Romania)

This study focuses on water resources management and shows the need to enforce the existing international bilateral agreements and to implement the Water Framework Directive of the European Union in order to improve the water quantity and quality received by a downstream country of a common watershed, like Timiş-Bega hydrographical basin, shared by two countries (Romania and Serbia). The spatial trend of water quality index (WQI) and its subindexes are important for determining the locations of major pollutant sources that contribute to water quality depletion in this basin. We compared the values of WQI obtained for 10 sections of the two most important rivers from Banat, which have a great importance for socioeconomic life in southwestern part of Romania and in northeastern part of Serbia. In order to assess the water quality, we calculated the WQI for a long period of time (2004–2014), taking into account the maximum, minimum, and the mean annual values of physical, chemical, and biological parameters (DO, pH, BOD5, temperature, total P, N-NO2−, and turbidity). This article highlights the importance of using the water quality index which has not been sufficiently explored in Romania and for transboundary rivers and which is very useful in improving rivers water quality