**4. Results**

*Advances in Forest Management under Global Change*

According to the National Institute of Statistics, Romania's forest fund covers an area of 6,529,000 hectares, representing 27.3% of the country's territory. The total

The multifunctional character of forests is given by their multiple roles: ecological, economic, and social. From a socioeconomic point of view, forest exploitation generates resources, especially wood, but it also plays an important role in the regeneration of water resources and air quality. Their use is multiple starting from the energy role (about half of the renewable energy consumed in the EU is produced from wood mass), for timber, paper industry, wood fiber panels, etc. The relationship between man and the forest is complex, and the dependence

The territory of Romania represents a point of intersection between different biogeographic regions: Arctic, Alpine, Western and Central European, Pannonian, Pontic, Balkan, sub-Mediterranean, and even Colchian and Turanic-Iranian. This high level of diversity of ecological conditions/systems also determines a great diversity of flora and fauna, estimated at 3700 species of plants and over 33,000 species of animals. A large number of these species (over 220 plants and over 1000 animals) are

endemic species, adapted to local conditions and are found only in Romania. Important areas of natural, virgin, and quasi-virgin forests are preserved in Romania. However, these areas are rapidly narrowing, currently occupying only about 280,000 hectares, that is, less than half of the existing area 20–25 years ago. These forests are located in a proportion of 99% in mountain regions (in karst areas, in hard-to-reach regions, on steep slopes and screes) and only in a proportion of 1% in the hill and plain regions (hard-to-reach areas of the Danube Delta or compact forest massifs located at a considerable distance from localities). Most of them are located in the area of beech and spruce and mixtures of spruce, fir, and beech. Currently, parts of the virgin and quasi-virgin forests of unique value, including for the biodiversity of natural ecosystems, are included in officially protected areas.

.

volume of forest stands is estimated at over 1340 million m3

**130**

is obviously mutual.

**Figure 5.**

*Romania—Study area.*

Economic pressure and extreme environmental factors have led to the reduction of forest areas worldwide. Romania has also registered a marked dynamics of the national forestry fund in the last decades.

The division of forest fund ownership, inadequate or poorly applied legislation, poor monitoring of the way the wood is exploited, and the occurrence of natural phenomena that have affected the forest (wind blows, biological attacks, etc.) led to the reduction of forest areas and especially to a strong fragmentation of them.

Finding methods that determine the most precisely deforested areas, the density of the existing forest, and its territorial fragmentation is of great importance for sustainable management of the national forestry fund but also within a sustainable development of the environment (protection against landslides, floods, air quality, groundwater resources, etc.).

The analysis was performed according to the types of relief units and their degree of forest cover. Thus, it is found that socioeconomic and natural factors of the last decades have generated a decrease of the compaction of the forest areas (**Figure 6**). The most affected unit of relief is that of the Carpathian Mountains and of the Mehedinți Plateau. All the relief units have suffered over time decreases of the compaction of the forest surface following the deforestation.

The tested and analyzed method may also indicate the technical way of extracting the wood from the logging. A selective extraction of valuable and mature trees or a

#### **Figure 6.**

*Evolution of the compaction of the areas occupied by the forest, at the level of relief units, between 2001 and 2018, in Romania.*

"shaved" exploitation, regardless of the size and nature of the successive species within those plots. This can be determined by comparing the obtained values of the FFI at the level of any reference year in the analyzed period.

By performing the value difference of the FFI obtained at the level of 2018 and the one from 2001, it can be seen which relief unit was more intense and more fragmented and deforested (**Figure 7**).

The area of the Carpathian Mountains, by the nature of the relief, leads to the clearing of surfaces arranged on different slopes and positions. This is also due to the access to the exploited plots and the shelving of the species. Instead, in the Romanian Plain or in the Danube Delta where the forest surfaces are composed of

*The degree of fragmentation of forests, obtained by comparing the value of the FFI 2018–FFI 2000.*

**133**

**Figure 10.**

**Figure 9.**

*Use of Fractal Analysis in the Evaluation of Deforested Areas in Romania*

*Annual dynamics of deforestation, by relief units, between 2001 and 2018.*

the same species, the exploitations are generally made from the marginal areas of the forest fund; thus, a decrease of the forested surface is recorded, but maintaining

*The average of the FFI deforestation index, between 2001 and 2018 (plateau, green color; plain, yellow color;* 

If the deforestation is done on small and isolated surfaces from year to year, the values of the FFI will be zero or very close to zero. The more the deforestation is done in continuation of the previous deforestation, expanding some deforested

The Carpathian Mountains have reduced accessibility to the forest fund. In the absence of adequate exploitation technologies (funiculars, helicopters, etc.), the arrangements in the immediate vicinity of the roads are overexploited [38].

its degree of fragmentation, in general.

*mountain and premontane units, brown color).*

areas spatially, the more the value of the FFI will increase.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91621*

**Figure 8.** *Dynamics of cumulative deforestation.*

#### *Use of Fractal Analysis in the Evaluation of Deforested Areas in Romania DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91621*

*Advances in Forest Management under Global Change*

level of any reference year in the analyzed period.

fragmented and deforested (**Figure 7**).

"shaved" exploitation, regardless of the size and nature of the successive species within those plots. This can be determined by comparing the obtained values of the FFI at the

By performing the value difference of the FFI obtained at the level of 2018 and the one from 2001, it can be seen which relief unit was more intense and more

The area of the Carpathian Mountains, by the nature of the relief, leads to the clearing of surfaces arranged on different slopes and positions. This is also due to the access to the exploited plots and the shelving of the species. Instead, in the Romanian Plain or in the Danube Delta where the forest surfaces are composed of

*The degree of fragmentation of forests, obtained by comparing the value of the FFI 2018–FFI 2000.*

**132**

**Figure 8.**

**Figure 7.**

*Dynamics of cumulative deforestation.*

*Annual dynamics of deforestation, by relief units, between 2001 and 2018.*

#### **Figure 10.**

*The average of the FFI deforestation index, between 2001 and 2018 (plateau, green color; plain, yellow color; mountain and premontane units, brown color).*

the same species, the exploitations are generally made from the marginal areas of the forest fund; thus, a decrease of the forested surface is recorded, but maintaining its degree of fragmentation, in general.

If the deforestation is done on small and isolated surfaces from year to year, the values of the FFI will be zero or very close to zero. The more the deforestation is done in continuation of the previous deforestation, expanding some deforested areas spatially, the more the value of the FFI will increase.

The Carpathian Mountains have reduced accessibility to the forest fund. In the absence of adequate exploitation technologies (funiculars, helicopters, etc.), the arrangements in the immediate vicinity of the roads are overexploited [38].

In the relief units where the forest fund is naturally fragmented and the access is much easier, we have forest exploitations on various locations (**Figure 8**).

It can be seen that the deforestation carried out within all the relief units varied from year to year. They are highlighted by the values of the annual FFI for each relief unit separately (**Figure 9**).

**Figure 10** shows the average FFI for all 18 years of analysis. The most compact deforestation, on average, took place in the Mehedinți Plateau, in the Carpathian Mountains, and in the Danube Delta. Instead, they were more fragmented in the plains and hills (Subcarpathians).

### **5. Conclusion**

Today, logging is one of the most important pressures on the natural environment, which causes major imbalances on all systemic components, the most important being the modification of microclimates [39, 40], floods, and landslides [41, 42]. In many specialized works, the need to develop methodologies for obtaining data on deforested surfaces and patterns in which they are made, especially for illegal cutting, is highlighted [43–46]. Fractal analysis offers a considerable amount of information, regarding the spatial characteristics of some fractal objects, whether or not they are in dynamics. The proposed index quantifies these characteristics, being very useful in establishing patterns.

Fractal analysis has proven to be a versatile method for evaluating the dynamics of deforestation, as well as identifying deforestation patterns; thus, it can be used complementary to the classical analyses by which data are obtained. FFI is useful in quantifying the degree of fragmentation and implicitly fractal compaction of forest areas and also provides important information on the effect of deforestation on forests, identifying also the moments of agglutination (clustering) of cumulative deforestation.

Being a fractal index, the FFI analyses are invariant at scale, bringing a significant addition to the classical analyses, thus being relevant in the realization of strategies for forest management. The FFI was used in the analysis of deforestation in Romania and the effect of deforestation at the county level [19, 36], indicating in all cases that fragmentation of forests increases following deforestation, having negative consequences on the stability of the hydrographic network and on the habitats. Like any fractal analysis, FFI analysis has limitations. For a correct analysis, but also to be able to make comparisons, all images, which are analyzed, must be at the same resolution, scale, and position and equally binarized.

In this study, FFI analysis allowed a clear differentiation of some patterns regarding the degree of fragmentation of the forests, but also of the compaction of the cumulative deforestation from the relief units in Romania, highlighting different dynamics. Thus, we have shown that the fragmentation of the forest is also relevant for the complex methodologies for calculating the flood risk and offers new perspectives for understanding the way in which the economic pressure on the forests is manifested.

#### **Acknowledgements**

The research activities were financed by the projects "Spatial projection of the human pressure on forest ecosystems in Romania," University of Bucharest, (UB/1365), and "Development of the Theory of the Dynamic Context by Analyzing the Role of the Aridization in Generating and Amplifying the Regressive

**135**

**Author details**

Ion Andronache1

România

România

Daniel Constantin Diaconu1

Cristian Constantin Drăghici1

, Marian Marin1

\*Address all correspondence to: daniel.diaconu@unibuc.ro

University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*, Răzvan Mihail Papuc2

, Radu-Daniel Pintilii1

2 Faculty of Administration and Business, University of Bucharest, Bucharest,

3 Faculty of Management, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest,

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

1 Faculty of Geography, Centre for Integrated Analysis and Territorial Management,

, Răzvan Cătălin Dobrea<sup>3</sup>

, Daniel Peptenatu1

and Alexandra Grecu1

,

,

*Use of Fractal Analysis in the Evaluation of Deforested Areas in Romania*

Research Youth and Sport (UEFISCDI) (TE-2014-4-0835).

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Phenomena from the Territorial Systems," Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding, Romanian Ministry of Education

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91621*

**Conflict of interest**

*Use of Fractal Analysis in the Evaluation of Deforested Areas in Romania DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91621*

Phenomena from the Territorial Systems," Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding, Romanian Ministry of Education Research Youth and Sport (UEFISCDI) (TE-2014-4-0835).
