Centre for Environmental Research and Impact Studies, University of Bucharest, 1st Nicolae Balcescu Blvd., 010041, Bucharest, Romania.
National Institute for Economic Research "Costin C. Kiritescu" (INCE), Romanian Academy, 13 September Street, No 13, Bucharest, Romania.
Sci Rep. 2021 Mar 8;11(1):5361. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-84802-9.
Globally, ecosystems are constantly degrading as a result of pressures derived from human activities and climate change. For working towards the restoration of the natural balance, it is necessary to evaluate the deviations induced in the ecosystems, to identify where the changes took place, to know what is their amplitude and to decide where it is possible to get involved. Many aquatic ecosystems are depreciated and their restoration is often difficult. Development of appropriate assessment methodologies will improve the decision-making process in public policies for environmental protection and conservation of biodiversity. This study presents an assessment of the degradation level of lentic ecosystems in Romania, performed through a multi-criteria analysis. An extension of the WRASTIC index (Wastewater-Recreational-Agricultural-Size-Transportations-Indutrial-Cover) was generated, namely WRASTIC-HI. The new index was obtained by including values derived from the Potential Pollutant Load index. The analysis showed that 13% of the evaluated lakes are natural, 56.5% are semi-degraded and 30.5% are degraded. The proposed methodology allows to determine the spatial distribution of the degradation sources and to calculate the corresponding indicators. The results obtained provide a useful tool for diagnostic step that can be used as a cornerstone to further identification of environmental conflicts and proposals for improvement of the ecological status of the lentic ecosystems.
全球范围内，由于人类活动和气候变化带来的压力，生态系统不断退化。为了努力恢复自然平衡，有必要评估生态系统中产生的偏差，确定变化发生的位置，了解其幅度，并决定在哪里可以介入。许多水生生态系统已经退化，其恢复往往很困难。开发适当的评估方法将改善环境保护和保护生物多样性的公共政策的决策过程。本研究通过多准则分析对罗马尼亚的静水生态系统退化程度进行了评估。扩展了 WRASTIC 指数（废水-娱乐-农业-规模-运输-工业-覆盖），即 WRASTIC-HI。新指数是通过包含源自潜在污染物负荷指数的值获得的。分析表明，评估的湖泊中有 13%是自然的，56.5%是半退化的，30.5%是退化的。所提出的方法允许确定退化源的空间分布并计算相应的指标。所获得的结果提供了一个有用的诊断步骤工具，可作为进一步识别环境冲突和改善静水生态系统生态状况建议的基础。
