Critical Environmental Regions

Rezumat. O scurt interpretare etimologic a noiunii de regiune (Rette Lineatte etc.), i

precizarea ideii c regiunea este: R= f(S+P), unde S spaiu i P putere (funcia duce la
discuiile despre atributele regiunii i evoluia abordrilor de factur regional). De la
ideile clasice (von Humboldt, 1885, Dokuceaev, 1899, Herbertson, 1905 i alii) s-a ajuns
la un spectru interpretativ a ceea ce noi acceptm ca uniti spaiale de organizare a
realitii geografice. n figura 1 se red un model, iar n a doua o sintez de abordri prin
prism ecologic i peisagistic. Regiunea environmental are conotaie prin ncrctur
i dinamic a sistemului element nconjurat (omul, societatea) i mediul adiacent.
Regiunile environmentale critice sunt nelese ca arii n care starea interactiv de
degradare este deja atins. Criticitatea survine att pe cale fizic, ceea ce nseamn
geocritice, ct i prin impact uman, adic antropocritice, unde n special factorul
social este afectat. Abordarea strilor critice este difereniat scalar pe nivele: local,
regional i global. Pentru nelegerea strilor regionale critice, se apeleaz la atributele de:
sensitivitate, fragilitate, rezilien i vulnerabilitate. Studiile environmentale asupra
situaiilor regionale critice sunt nc restrnse, fapt ce trebuie eliminat ct se poate de
repede.
Cuvinte cheie: regiune, caracteristici ale regiunii, uniti regionale, regiuni ambientale
critice.

I. Covering note
The Upper Terrestrial Layer (U.T.L.), outcome of the integration of the Earths
physical, biotic and human masses under a cosmo-planetary determination, can be
discovered in various territorial expressions.
Two of these expressions are considered to be carrying the geographic integral
message: region and landscape. On this first form of territorial expression we will
shortly focus, while regarding the second one, adjacent references will be made.
II. The Geographic Region: Etymology, Content and Significance
1. The astrologers in the Antiquity divided the starry canopy of the sky in order
to decipher the spatial structure and to understand/reveal the celestial message. In this
respect, Rette Lineatte, distinguished areas, meaning RETE, which are governed by a
certain power strongly guiding the earthlings. Thus, rete, regio, region signifies SPACE-
POWER (R= f (S+P).
2. Since then, to today and probably for eternity, the region is defined through
the following aspects:
- Localization
- Extent
- Flexibility in space
- Load (material, energetic, informational)
- Message-function (for ex. guiding function)
- Operational facilities
III. Aspects Regarding the Spectrum of the Earths Spatial Divisions
1. The studies in the 18th century related to the spatial distribution and
ordering of the livings and soils led to the shaping of the zonation concept. The notion of
zone was thus elaborated (Von Humboldt, 1885, Dokuceaev, 1899). The zone is an
extended territorial area on the terrestrial globe within which the natural conditions have
similar characteristics.
2. In quite the same period, at global scale, the zones were divided into regions
(Herbertson, 1905).
3. The thorough researches that followed on in the direction of the structural
distribution of the territorial weaving into spatial units with various significance will
give rise to a wide spectrum of approaching ways (Polssarge, 1929, Veatch, 1930,
Bourne, 1931, Tansley, 1945, Berg, 1947, Biasnnetti, 1962, Sukachev and Dylis, 1964,
Wertz and Arnold, 1966, Bertrand, 1968, Troll, 1971 and others), as follows:
- Landscape units or landschaft;
- Site and site regions (inhabitation places or regions);
- Ecosystems (Tansley, 1935);
- Units for territorial use;
- Geosystem;
- Ecoregions etc.
The entire conceptual arsenal and all the operations of structuring the geographic
reality, both in the horizontal and vertical plane, are compulsory filtered by the scalar
thresholds.
The immediate consequence is the shaping of the ecosystemic geography. This is
meant to study the distribution of patterns, structures, differentiation processes and
interaction frameworks at various scales (Beiley, 1996).
The ecosystemic geography focuses on the regional and global systems. Within
them, various hierarchies and ranks are identified (Fig. 2).
The ecoregions are understood through their determining factors as: geologic
substrate, relief, climate, waters, land use etc.
This ecogeographic direction of regionalization (ecoregions) is obviously
detaching from what the classical and even the modern geography deals with in the
geography of region.
4. The region, working spatial unit for various geographic and para-geographic
approaches (economics, planning, administration etc.), stirs up or arouses extremely
contradictory interpretations.
Without enumerating persons and ideas, some vague aspects related to the regions
still stands out:
a) It does not have an univocal definition:
- An instrument of spatial knowledge and generalization
(Fellman, Getis, Csetis, 1990, Cocean, 2004);
- Complex territorial unit (Mihilescu, 1968);
- Formations of places (Thrift, 1996);
- Social category (Passi, 1986).
b) Their constituting way is vague:
- The natural-historical way (Demangeot, 1990);
- The way of the societal determinism (Weichart, 1996);
- The way of the technocentrism (ORiordan, 1976).
The wide spectrum of opinion does not prevent us, but, on the contrary, helps us
in polishing in an Aristotelian logic this issue.
 Before all, we consider that the region is an objectified space. If analyzed both
from inside or outside, it should be admitted that it is governed by more variables:
material load, energy, space and time. Two tendencies characterize this objectified space:
of preservation, with a tendency of entropic growing, and of continuous renewal
(negentropy).
As a result, the region may be:
- Real-objective, not depending on the human or on the
society will (the Antarctic Region);
- Inferred (noticed);
- Conceived, under the virtue of a clear purpose, as:
Thought out (mental)
Normative (legislative)
Planned (plan region)
Edified (built)
Institutionalized
Attributive (flourishing region, underdeveloped
regions, poor regions)
- Specified (climatic, geomorphologic)
Many aspects should be still cleared up in order to avoid semantic, interpretative,
constructive (poles, areas, attractors) and appellative confusions or misunderstandings.
From the semiotic point of view, the region is a polisemantic concept. The
environmental regions come to illustrate the above-mentioned aspect.
IV. The Environmental Region (Ambiental)
The complex register related to the region and to the regionalization process
enlarges through a new element: the ambiental region. Far from a well-defined
conceptualization, the environmental region could be identified by using various criteria,
as: the form in which the central component is inter-related to the surrounding one, the
state at a certain moment and the evolution tendency, the determination factors (in the
light of the modern environmentalism), the change dynamics etc.
In a general acceptance, in this case we deal with the area (territory) in which the
surrounded element the human being, the society interrelates with the surrounding
one the environment and in which the prevailing state is favorable or not to the society.
From the anthropocentric point of view, the environmental regions will be:
1. Real regions (the real-objective environment)
2. Operational regions (the operational environment)
3. Perceived regions (under the virtue of a certain feature or quality)
4. Behavioral regions related to the manifestation of the territorial
environmental load (for ex. related to drought, earthquakes, volcanism).
The quality of the environmental state defines the ambiental region character. The
following categories can be distinguished:
- Viable environmental regions (in equilibrium);
- Critical environmental regions.
The latter category can be split into:
- Geocritical, when significant changes in the physical attributes are
noticed;
 - Anthropocritical (sociocritical), when the societal factor is
affected.
The critical environmental region represents an area in which the interactive state
of degradation was reached (Beiley et al., 1978). The critical moment can be understood
through a balance of the following type: the requirement of resources is higher than the
natural potential, fact which leads to a gradual exhaustion; the tolerance limits are
surpassed by the aggressivity of the harmful contamination.
The critical character and the associated terms are analyzed at various scales:
global scale human necessities and growing limits, regional scale critical zones or
critical areas, referring to the capacity of the resources in a territory to sustain a certain
population, local scale critical areas as the places with humidity excess or the areas
invaded by eolian sands.
The efforts of men to maintain within the critical regions a certain level of
ambiental efficiency, through the skilful friction reduction, are many times marked by
risk phenomena.
The methodology used in analyzing the critical environmental regions implies the
examination of some attributes that have been identified as central to such situations.
These attributes include: sensitivity, fragility, resilience and vulnerability. These will help
in understanding the change as a derivation of the stress action upon the resistance of the
system. The discussions about these attributes are numerous (Holling, 1986, Blaikie and
Bookfield, 1987, Travis and Morris, 1992, Turner and Benjamin, 1994, Kasperson at all,
1995, Mac, 2003 etc.), the adopting of the following definitions being finally
recommended:
- Sensitivity (or susceptibility) is the extent to which the
environmental systems respond to the perturbations induced by the extrinsic
factors;
- Fragility represents the susceptibility of the environmental systems
to instability and to risks breaking out;
- Resilience is the environmental systems ability to preserve its
structural basis after perturbations induced through human actions and to recover
its essential state after such changes (perturbations);
- Vulnerability is an attribute indicating the rapport between the
possible changes under certain conditions and the normal use patterns. Therefore,
vulnerability is a function of susceptibility, dependence (related to some goods or
factors) and transferability (relocation, substitution).
The identification, defining and uncovering of the critical environmental regions
were subject to various approaches and interpretations. The beginning of this process is
strongly related to the awareness of the environmental changes under human impact,
which were first perceptible locally and regionally and, later on, globally. The critical
environmental situations were the first to have been taken into discussion. The Russian
geographers elaborated the red data maps (Mather and Sdasynk, 1991) on which
critical areas were located. Subsequently, different international organizations (as FAO,
ONU etc.) and famous scientific institutions (UNU- United Nations University, the
Institute for Geography of the Russian Academy, the Khark University etc.) co-
coordinated various projects and programs, the result being the elaboration of the critical
environmental states concept and the spatial form of its manifestation, that is the critical
environmental regions, as Amazonia, the Basin of the Aral Sea, the Northern Sea, Lliano
Estacada of the American Southern High Plains.
As regarding the Romanian territory, there were not made attempts in
regionalizing it by using the criterion of the critical environmental states. Some local
studies of this kind are worth to be mentioning, studies focused mainly on critical urban
and technological areas: Copa Mic (Mac, 1996), Zlatna (Rusu, Muntean, 1992), Ocnele
Mari (Blteanu) etc.
At regional scale the attempts are insignificant (Mac, 1992), even if the Romanian
territory includes some evident regional critical environmental units.
An environmental region will highlight, especially when it is critical, the
ethological aspect of the human community.

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