Romania's coastal erosion

According to a report about the causes and responses to Romania's coastal erosion issues available at http://www.ice.org.uk/ICE_Web_Portal/media/Events/Breakwaters%202013/Causes-and-Responses-to-Romania%E2%80%99s-Coastal-Erosion-Issues.pdf,  Romania has an entry at the Black Sea Coastline for  a shoreline of 240 Km. Mamaia, Eforie Sud, Eforie Nord, Costinesti, Constanta, Jupiter, Venus are some of the major Romanian beaches which attract thousands of people every year, both foreign and domestic. 
Apart from the inputs from the Danube, there is little contemporary supply of sediment to the coast. Certain areas of the shoreline are subject to significant erosion risks. Thus, erosion occurs primarily because 

• of major port developments that interrupted sediments movements on the coast
• extension of the river Danube training walls improving navigation but with a significant impact on existing sedimentation patterns
• changes in sediment supply to the coast from the river Danube brought about by dams constructed

According to http://www.eurosion.org/shoreline/45mamaia.html, Mamaia is the biggest seaside tourism resort in Romania which has one of the most attractive touristic beaches from the southern part of the Romanian Black Sea Coast. It is located close to Constanta city on a narrow sand bar of about 250-350 m width and 8.5 km beach length between Siutghiol Lake (in the west) and the Black Sea (in the east).

Coastal erosion is a particular problem at Mamaia, due to the Midia harbour extension dikes which act as a barrier to longshore currents running from north to south. Unfortunately, erosion is an accelerating process in this area and represents a high risk for the beach environment and related human activities (tourism). The morphological evolution of the beach is influenced also by the diminution of the alluvial sediments discharged by the Danube into the Black Sea and by the extension of Sulina jetties and development of Constanta - South Agigea Port as well which have modified the natural currents and wave regime. The new configuration of the Romanian coast, together with a lessening of sediment loads, contributed to the disturbance of nearshore sedimentary processes and has resulted in an increasing erosion in the southern part of the coast, particularly on Mamaia beach.

Severe storms in 1981, 1986 and 1988 have aggravated the erosion process, particularly in the southern part of Mamaia beach. Significant damage has occurred to beach developments and some hotels have been endangered. Coastal defences were built starting with 1989, consisting of 6 breakwaters (to a depth of 5 m) running from the south to the centre of Mamaia beach. In addition, artificial nourishment was undertaken with sand taken from Siutghiol Lake and placed on 1.5 km of beach behind the breakwaters. Although shoreline retreat was stopped directly in front of the breakwaters, erosion rates nevertheless increased immediately northward of the protected beach area.

  What is Romania doing to prevent coastal erosion and alert people? 

Coastal defense and beach control structures took place during the 1970s' and 1980s but are generally in poor condition due to lack of maintenance investment. And the poor condition of these defense structures unfortunately allowed beaches to deteriorate significantly.

Clearly, Romanian authorities need to do a lot more in order to prevent the coastline which is a magnificent asset attracting thousands of tourists both national and international.

Romania's extreme weather events

Romania is known to have a temperate climate with 4 alternating seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. To date, there is no history of tropical cyclones. There are however other phenomena, such as: snow blizzards, heatwaves and drought.

Blizzards

Quite a few severe winter snowstorms were registered in the past years, (snow blizzards, namely) which have continuously increased in intensity and become more severe recently.
In February 2012, according to http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/01/extreme-cold-weather-eastern-europe, six homeless people have died of hypothermia as temperatures plunged to -32.5C, the health ministry reported. And hundreds of people were sent to shelters to protect them from the extreme cold.
According to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrgJBwOmAD4, a red code was issued for the very first time in January 2014 in Romania in parts of the South East because of the severe snow blizzards. Trains were cancelled, schools and ports were closed, power was cut off, many villages were completely cut off, transport by helicopter was made impossible.


An interesting article located at http://www.romania-insider.com/new-report-shows-the-countries-most-damaged-by-extreme-weather-where-does-romania-stand/137273/ about the Global Climate Risk Index,  shows Romania to be ranking 29th in the 2015 Global Climate Risk Index. Based on the number of deaths in 2013, Romania ranks 42, while in terms of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, Romania is at number 61 in the index. And based on financial losses in USD, Romania ranks 24th, according to the same report.




Heatwaves

In June and July 2007 there were at least two heatwaves reported that killed more than 20 people according to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6902523.stm and 27 people according to http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19916533/ns/weather/t/european-heat-wave-blamed-deaths/#.VTrGGWPZqSo. In 2012, another major heatwave hit Romania reaching 42 Celsius degrees. http://www.romania-insider.com/heatwave-continues-in-romania-with-temperatures-reaching-42c/62555/Romanian authorities issued a code orange alert for high temperatures in Bucharest and 22 counties in Southern and Eastern Romania.
A study on heatwaves in Romania (http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2015/EGU2015-7262.pdf) written by Adina-Eliza Croitoru from Babes-Bolyai University - Department of Geography, Cluj Napoca, Romania concluded that the most numerous and the longest heat waves are specific to Southern and Western regions of Romania, while the less and the shortest ones were recorded in the Southeast. In addition, the great majority of weather stations recorded increasing trends to all heat waves parameters: heat waves number, heat waves day frequency, heat waves mean duration, heat waves maximum duration.


Due to global warming and climate change,  severe snow blizzards and storms in the winter and heat waves in the summer have become more common and have translated into a constantly recurring reality. There is not much that Romanian authorities can influence in this respect if there is no concerted effort on the part Europe to contain global warming and try to prevent these extreme weather events. Many Europeans expressed interest in knowing if heatwaves or blizzards are caused by global warming as noted by Keller and Blodgett. It is also noted that "meteorologists cannot tell if a single weather event is the result of changes that humans have made to the atmosphere. They can, however, estimate the probability that human influence has increased the risk of a heatwave exceeding a given magnitude. (Keller and Blodgett, 269).

Drought

A study on drought conditions and management strategies in Romania, available at http://www.ais.unwater.org/ais/pluginfile.php/548/mod_page/conten/72/Romania_CountryReport.pdf, the drought affects 7.1 million ha, which represent 48% from the total agricultural land.The South, Southeast and East parts of our country are the most hit areas (<600 m3 water /hectare) by extreme and severe drought). During the extremely droughty years average yields of various crops represented only 35, 60 percent of the potential yields. An analysis of the 1901-2010 interval focused on annual mean air temperatures recorded by weather stations that possess observation data sequences covering more than 100 years, has shown an increase of 0.5 C in the annual mean temperature over 1988 - 2010 (10.2 C) as against the whole analysis interval (9.7 C), which is lower than the global mean warming of 0.6 C. As regards the decadal evolution of annual mean air temperature, it was higher by 0.4-0.6 C over 2001-2010 than in every decade from 1961 to 2010. Concerning precipitation, the 1900-2010 period highlighted a general decreasing trend in the annual precipitation after the year 1961 and a parallel enhancement of the precipitation deficit, especially in the South, South East and East of the country. Since 1901 until now, Romania has seen in every decade one to four extremely droughty/rainy years, an increasing number of droughts being more and more apparent especially after 1981.
The drought that occurred in 2012 was particularly devastating to crops and food, as shown by the video available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19292597

With respect to what Romanian authorities are doing in order to alert people, they do issue red codes in addition to warning codes and they inform the population about these severe weather events via television, radio and press.

Sinkholes and subsidence

Sinkholes occur where the rock situated below the land surface is limestone, carbonate, salt beds or rocks that can be naturally dissolved by groundwater circulating through them. According to my research, less than 2% of Romania's land area is underlain by carbonate bedrock and 13% of Romania's underwater supply comes from groundwater (Land Use Policy and Practice on Karst Terrains: Living on Limestone by Spencer Fleury).
Sinkholes are definitely more of a regular occurrence in Romania than I thought, although we normally don't tend to hear much about them. Thus, the Apuseni Mountains and the Padurea Craiului Mountains (where bauxite bodies were discovered to be close enough to the surface) present countless sinkholes. Most likely we don't hear about these particular ones, as they are not located in densely populated areas.

According to https://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/sinkhole-swallows-town-in-romania-state-of-emergency-declared-by-city-officials/, geological faults coupled with dangerous mining conditions have created a nightmare for the Romanian village of Ocna Mures. The entire village was sucked into a giant sinkhole and a state of emergency was declared for the region. The sinkhole covered near 1800 square meters. Roads and  buildings were cracked in the area. Many people slept in the streets out of fear that their houses could collapse in the night and city officials feared that land subsidence could extend to other localities and called in experts to see if there is danger of the collapse spreading outside the region. (December 24, 2010)


 Images of the destructive sinkhole in Ocna Mures, Romania


On June 7, 2013, according to http://strangesounds.org/2013/06/huge-sinkhole-swallows-rubbish-truck-in-craiova-romania-june-7-2013.html, a huge sinkhole swallowed a truck in Craiova, Romania. 
The road’s collapse has been blamed on weeks of torrential rain. Thus, the hole opened up because the ground under the tarmac had been washed away by powerful underground floods.

Image of the swallowing sinkhole in Craiova, Romania

What is Romania doing to prevent or alert people regarding sinkholes?

Unfortunately so far my research has been rather fruitless with respect to what measures Romanian authorities are taking regarding  the prevention of sinkholes (which I don't particularly think we can focus on, as this is rather something outside of our control, but at least we can:
1. learn proper construction and development practices
2. not disturb natural water draining passages
3. not draw groundwater for irrigation and human consumption so much from aquifers
4. inform and educate the population about the dangers associated with land subsidence

I will update this blog if I find any further information about preventing measures or alerting people to these phenomena.

To sum up, sinkholes/land subsidence is not an isolated phenomenon and it does occur more often than we suspect.

Lanslides

 I have found a ton of information regarding landslides in Romania, so much that it would be impossible to put it all in this blog...and that's too bad because it's very telling.

First and foremost, according to an article very suggestively entitled "Why is it so difficult to assess landslides hazard and risk in Romania?" by Romanian renowned geophysicists from the Geological Institute of Romania, Raluca-Mihaela Maftei, Constantina Filipciuc and George Vina, available at http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/85206845/why-so-difficult-assess-landslides-hazard-risk-romania, landslides constitute a very common geomorphic hazard in Romania, mainly in the hilly regions which occupy around 30% of Romania's territory. But these regions are not the only ones to be affected by this geological phenomenon. Mountains too are affected by this and
 according to http://www.naun.org/multimedia/NAUN/geology/ijgeo-10.pdf,
in Romania slopes affected by landslides are located in the Eastern Carpathians.

Unfavorable natural conditions such as: non-uniformity in the slope lithology, high slope gradients, and high rainfall rates combined with engineering works have accelerated local instability by increasing surface runoff and erosion. This has lowered the base level in the adjacent valleys/gullies by 1-2 meters, increasing the slide potential. An example for the eastern part of Romania's Carpathian Mountains is the Zemes landslide, which extends over 1.4 -1.8 kilometers in length, with a width of around 500 meters at the slope base and a total change in elevation of about 350 meters. This and similar slides cover 30-40 percent of the land on both sides of Tazlaul Sarat Valley. They have developed especially on soft or altered rocks. Unfortunately, these recurrent landslides produce an asymmetric shape to the valley, which increases the potential for landslide reactivation because of infiltration of water into the ground.

According to an article on landslide movements in Romania published in the International Journal of Geology in 2007 http://www.naun.org/multimedia/NAUN/geology/ijgeo-10.pdff, most landslides in Romania occur as a result of a combination of poor forest management and intense rainfall.

A study of susceptibility for landslides was carried out in Romania through use of the following methods: historic information concerning landslide occurrence, information about triggering factors, landslides classification, damages caused, field measurements and lab tests undertaken to determine physical properties of rocks, landslides mapping, landslide hazard zonation. Gradually, new methodologies were introduced, such as the Geographical Information System (GIS) for environmental monitoring.

What is Romania doing in order to prevent landslides and alert people?

Well,  according to http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/85206845/why-so-difficult-assess-landslides-hazard-risk-romaniahttp://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/85206845/why-so-difficult-assess-landslides-hazard-risk-romania , given the very common occurrence of landslides, the Geological Institute of Romania worked on landslide inventory maps, risk management and assessment (analyzing and reporting systematic risk factors). However, public access to landslide hazard and risk maps is not facilitated, so people tend to largely be uninformed about the risks in their areas with respect to landslides. Moreover, public administration authorities have not identified, delimited or declared which are the high risk zones in their jurisdictions.
But, at the same time people who live in areas prone to landslides, people (over 80% of participants in the study) were aware of the relations between landslides and other phenomena: rainfalls, slope declivity, torrents, etc. as well as human activity: salt and oil exploitation, construction in areas with risk, closed mines, poor forest management; moreover, 70% of them had been suffering because of the direct impact of landslides.
According to the same above mentioned article published in 2012, people's involvement with local authorities tends to be minimal (they don't have any input for administration's plan with respect to the prevention of landslides), but out of their own willingness, they plant trees, fill up the cracks in their houses with cement and make wooden nets.

Thus, more needs to be done in order to prevent landslides from happening, considering the horrific damage they inflict upon communities and entire areas. A report by the European Commission - Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen located at http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ESDB_Archive/eusoils_docs/other/eur20558EN.pdf (page 83) outlines conclusions and key lessons learned in dealing with landslides and lists everything that should be done in order to mitigate landslides in an effective way. Quite an informative report and one that Romanian authorities should take a look at!