17 Update, Conclusions, and Recommendations …
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legalizing adjustments are needed to increase the integration of water resources in
good and very good classes (currently only 60% of Romania’s water resources can be
integrated into this class). The main recommended measures to achieve a higher percentage are related to supporting investments in the implementation of a wastewater
collection system, especially in rural areas, where surface and underground surface
water pollution is accentuated by lack of septic tanks and garbage disposal sites
waste. These measures should also be integrated with the investments to be made in
the water supply systems and increasing the access to good quality water, especially
in rural areas.
In the same sense, a series of measures can be taken to renaturation the main
areas where the anthropic impact is significant. We are considering here increasing
the terrestrial and aquatic areas that can be included in protected wetlands (currently
at the level of Romania, only 19 sites with a total area of approximately 1.6 million
hectares are included within protected areas under the RAMSAR Convention) and
where the environmental impact has been significantly reduced by real measures to
protect and reduce the level of anthropogenic pollution.
Another recommendation that must be included in future local or regional management plans is to reduce the impact of extreme hydrological phenomena on human
communities and the economic activities. This can be achieved by concrete measures
to relocate rural and urban sites, especially those severely affected in the last decades
by floods [14, 34]. In parallel, work on hydro-technical structures designed to protect and defend against floods can be continued but adapted to new hydrological
conditions where extreme hydrological phenomena such as flash floods and floods
reach thresholds beyond the scenarios set out in the original plans [33]. Extreme
hydrological phenomena associated with high temperatures and lack of rainfall that
can generate hydrological droughts and which can be mitigated by investing in irrigation or water supply systems in water surplus areas (especially from mountain
drainage basins) must not be forgotten [15, 32]. These actions can also reduce the
economic effects of bankruptcy of energy-producing companies (like Hidroelectrica
S.A.’s case) or a significant reduction in agricultural production. Also a series of
non-structural measures can be taken that address the ways of evacuating the population affected by floods or real afforestation actions in the affected mountainous
and sub-mountainous areas in recent decades due to intense grubbing-up legislative
gaps.
A last recommendation and perhaps the most recent one is to integrate in water
management plans the scenarios related to global and regional climate change. These
changes, which at local level are unlikely to be felt, in time can generate devastating
effects. Currently there are slight tendencies to increase the average air temperature
with effects in increasing the quantities of evaporated water with effect in the drought
phenomena that are becoming more and more frequent and severe. At the same time
a slight concentration of atmospheric precipitation in the warm season of the year
is observed. Exceptional rains with quantities exceeding 250–300 mm in only a few
hours that generated severe floods and floods have become a hydrological normality
[18]. That is why it is necessary to integrate all regional climate change scenarios
into future management plans so that the most pragmatic measures are taken within a
583
legalizing adjustments are needed to increase the integration of water resources in
good and very good classes (currently only 60% of Romania’s water resources can be
integrated into this class). The main recommended measures to achieve a higher percentage are related to supporting investments in the implementation of a wastewater
collection system, especially in rural areas, where surface and underground surface
water pollution is accentuated by lack of septic tanks and garbage disposal sites
waste. These measures should also be integrated with the investments to be made in
the water supply systems and increasing the access to good quality water, especially
in rural areas.
In the same sense, a series of measures can be taken to renaturation the main
areas where the anthropic impact is significant. We are considering here increasing
the terrestrial and aquatic areas that can be included in protected wetlands (currently
at the level of Romania, only 19 sites with a total area of approximately 1.6 million
hectares are included within protected areas under the RAMSAR Convention) and
where the environmental impact has been significantly reduced by real measures to
protect and reduce the level of anthropogenic pollution.
Another recommendation that must be included in future local or regional management plans is to reduce the impact of extreme hydrological phenomena on human
communities and the economic activities. This can be achieved by concrete measures
to relocate rural and urban sites, especially those severely affected in the last decades
by floods [14, 34]. In parallel, work on hydro-technical structures designed to protect and defend against floods can be continued but adapted to new hydrological
conditions where extreme hydrological phenomena such as flash floods and floods
reach thresholds beyond the scenarios set out in the original plans [33]. Extreme
hydrological phenomena associated with high temperatures and lack of rainfall that
can generate hydrological droughts and which can be mitigated by investing in irrigation or water supply systems in water surplus areas (especially from mountain
drainage basins) must not be forgotten [15, 32]. These actions can also reduce the
economic effects of bankruptcy of energy-producing companies (like Hidroelectrica
S.A.’s case) or a significant reduction in agricultural production. Also a series of
non-structural measures can be taken that address the ways of evacuating the population affected by floods or real afforestation actions in the affected mountainous
and sub-mountainous areas in recent decades due to intense grubbing-up legislative
gaps.
A last recommendation and perhaps the most recent one is to integrate in water
management plans the scenarios related to global and regional climate change. These
changes, which at local level are unlikely to be felt, in time can generate devastating
effects. Currently there are slight tendencies to increase the average air temperature
with effects in increasing the quantities of evaporated water with effect in the drought
phenomena that are becoming more and more frequent and severe. At the same time
a slight concentration of atmospheric precipitation in the warm season of the year
is observed. Exceptional rains with quantities exceeding 250–300 mm in only a few
hours that generated severe floods and floods have become a hydrological normality
[18]. That is why it is necessary to integrate all regional climate change scenarios
into future management plans so that the most pragmatic measures are taken within a