The dynamics and conservation of forest ecosystems in Bucharest Metropolitan Area

Over the recent years, metropolitan regions dealt with the growing problems of urban growth, land use/land cover changes, landscape fragmentation, deforestation and loss of natural vegetation. By its position in the Romanian Plain (southern Romania), Bucharest Metropolitan Area faced significant land transformations over the past centuries due its favourable natural, socio-political and economic conditions which shaped the prerequisites for intensive/extensive agriculture, urbanization and industrialization. The paper is aiming to provide an insight on the temporal and spatial evolution of forest ecosystems based on several statistical and spatial data issued from historical documents and cartographical materials covering the past over two hundred years: 1790-1912 (empirical approach); 1912-1990 and 1990-2014 (spatial and statistical analysis). The outcomes revealed significant forest withdrawal over the analysed intervals in relation to the main triggering driving factors (e.g. historical, political, economic). Moreover, the study is completed with valuable information on the biogeographical and ecosystem classification of forests in the study-area, as well as the conservation of forest ecosystems though natural protected areas.