Exploring the quality of employment in Romania at different territorial levels

The paper aims to explore the quality of employment at different territorial levels (national, macro-regional, regional, county and local level). The first section of the study approaches the quality of employment in terms of several perspectives (sociological, economic and geographical). Methodological aspects are discussed in the second section, with focus on the selection of statistical indicators by two main criteria: the relevance of the indicators and their availability for all the mentioned territorial levels. The largest part of the paper presents the analysis results, basically the typologies of the mentioned territorial levels in terms of selected indicators mirroring the quality of employment. The study shows that there exists a relationship between the situation of the quality of employment (weak, average or good) and the different territorial levels analysed

IS SOCIAL RESILIENCE AN ECONOMIC STRUCTURE ISSUE OR JUST THE ABILITY OF COMMUNITIES TO COPE WITH EXTERNAL STRESS ?

The paper analyzes social resilience at county level in Romania, in the context of the recent global financial and economic crisis. Generally, social resilience is seen as the ability of communities to cope with external stress such as changes in the economic environment. This study emphasizes the vulnerabilities of economies where communities live in, namely the particularities of economic environment where human communities evolve and co-evolve by resilience emergence. Thus, the link between the social and the economic component requires a special attention, initially external shock being experienced by the economic structure, which, to respond to sudden changes, dissipates shock to the other components of the social-economic system, namely the social component. The close relationship between the economic and the social components causes economies deepening into crisis by triggering a circular causality process. The population’s decision to change residence interrupts this process, leading to social resilience

Estimation of Future Changes in Aboveground Forest Carbon Stock in Romania. A Prediction Based on Forest-Cover Pattern Scenario

The aboveground forest biomass plays a key role in the global carbon cycle and is considered a large and constant carbon reservoir. Hence, exploring the future potential changes in forest-cover pattern can help to estimate the trend of forest biomass and therefore, carbon stock in a certain area. As a result, the present paper attempts to model the potential changes in aboveground forest carbon stock based on the forest-cover pattern scenario simulated for 2050. Specifically, the resulting aboveground forest biomass, estimated for 2015 using the allometric equation based on diameter at breast height and the estimated forest density, was used as baseline data in the present approach. These spatial data were integrated into the forest-cover pattern scenario, predicted by using a spatially explicit model, i.e., the Conversion of Land Use and its Effects at Small regional extent (CLUE-S), in order to estimate the potential variation of aboveground forest carbon stock. Our results suggest an overall increase by approximately 4% in the aboveground forest carbon stock until 2050 in Romania. However, important differences in the forest-cover pattern change were predicted on the regional scale, thus highlighting that the rates of carbon accumulation will change significantly in large areas. This study may increase the knowledge of aboveground forest biomass and the future trend of carbon stock in the European countries. Furthermore, due to their predictive character, the results may provide a background for further studies, in order to investigate the potential ecological, socio-economic and forest management responses to the changes in the aboveground forest carbon stock. However, in view of the uncertainties associated with the data accuracy and methodology used, it is presumed that the results include several spatial errors related to the estimation of aboveground forest biomass and simulation of future forest-cover pattern change and therefore, represent an uncertainty for the practical management of applications and decisions

Research and Science Today No. 1(7)/2014

RESEARCH AND SCIENCE TODAY is a biannual science journal established in 2011. The journal is an informational platform that publishes assessment articles and the results of various scientific research carried out by academics. We provide the authors with the opportunity to create and/or perfect their science writing skills. Thus, each issue of the journal (two per year and at least two supplements) will contain professional articles from any academic field, authored by domestic and international academics. The goal of this journal is to pass on relevant information to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students as well as to fellow academics and researchers; the topics covered are unlimited, considering its multi-disciplinary profile. Regarding the national and international visibility of Research and Science Today, it is indexed in over 30 international databases (IDB) and is present in over 200 online libraries and catalogues; therefore, anybody can easily consult the articles featured in each issue by accessing the databases or simply the website