Simona R. Gradinaru

Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL | WSL

In contemporary debates, the concept of governance is employed as a framework to describe the changing interplay among the state, market actors and civil society. Governance is analytically used to frame, on the one hand, the decision-making dynamics, discursive debates, negotiations and conflicts among the numerous actors involved in policy making...

Landscape fragmentation is one of the consequences of increased socio-economic pressure facing many regions of the world today. The European Environment Agency published an assessment of fragmentation in 2011 on the scale of the entire continent, based on the effective mesh size. In this report, Romania is mentioned as an interesting case, and it i...

The rapid decline in global biodiversity underscores the critical need for comprehensive monitoring of wildlife distribution and abundance. This study explores the trends in applied hierarchical modeling, which is an important tool in addressing these conservation challenges. By analyzing a dataset of 697 peer-reviewed articles published between 20...

The rapid decline in global biodiversity underscores the critical need for comprehensive monitoring of wildlife distribution and abundance. This study explores the trends in applied hierarchical modeling, which is an important tool in addressing these conservation challenges. By analyzing a dataset of 697 peer-reviewed articles published between 20...

With the rise of the ecosystem services concept, urban nature has gained significant value. Numerous studies have been conducted to delineate both the dependent and independent variables to consider when evaluating the regulating, provisioning, and supporting ecosystem services. Concerning the provisioning of cultural ecosystem services, urban gree...

The rapid decline in global biodiversity underscores the critical need for comprehensive monitoring of wildlife distribution and abundance. This study explores the trends in applied hierarchical modeling, which is an important tool in addressing these conservation challenges. By analyzing a dataset of 668 peer-reviewed articles published between 20...

Due to its potential to help mitigate current societal challenges and provide ecological, social, and economic benefits, urban green infrastructure (UGI) is an important investment for cities. However, its planning and implementation may be challenging due to the limited application of the conceptual foundations and the often-unknown character of t...

To halt land take in Europe, the European Union set a "no net land take by 2050 ′′ target in 2011. However, land take continues to occur in European countries, with recent studies suggesting that local decision-making is playing a major role in these land-use conversions. In this study, we investigated how urban growth boundaries (UGBs) are used by...

Urban vacant lands have become increasingly important since their potential to become both a resource and a nuisance. Although they can be transformed into green infrastructure, they also pose a threat to human safety due to their role as invasive plant species habitat. In this chapter, we explore the potential effect of the urban land vacancy on t...

Public consultation is an essential component of the planning process to achieve sustainable development. However, there is still a lack of knowledge related to public engagement in consultation processes on urban planning matters. Thus, the aim of this study was to understand public needs in terms of planning urban space by exploring the content o...

Human–wildlife interactions (HWIs) are increasingly common human disturbances as development continues to remove wildlife habitats. Documenting HWI is critical for environmental protection agencies to develop strategies and management decisions that meet the needs of both people and wildlife. However, evaluation of the frequency and types of HWI at...

In Europe, equity has become an important policy objective based on the recently adopted European Green Deal and the idea of “leaving no one behind”. However, the question remains as to what extent equity is a real concern in the implementation of territorial policies, including spatial planning, and other place-based strategies in the EU member st...

Human-wildlife interactions (HWI) are increasingly common as human disturbance and development continue to remove wildlife habitats. Documenting HWIs is critical for management agencies to develop strategies and management decisions that meet the needs of both people and wildlife. However, evaluating the frequency and types of HWI at broad spatial...

While major urban areas are expanding, becoming more crowded, vegetated lands areshrinking. Built-up densification limits the planning of large urban green spaces,depriving urban dwellers of the benefits provided by such structures. In this context,small public urban green spaces (SPUGS) become of high value for urban landscapes,and their distribut...

Iron Gates Natural Park. Monograph An invitation to Iron Gates Natural Park: Maria Pătroescu, Laurențiu Rozylowicz, Marian C. Jiplea Iron Gates Natural Park. Administrative and legal aspects: Mihai R. Niță, Marian C. Jiplea, Diana A. Onose, Maria Pătroescu The Geography of Iron Gates Natural Park: Steluța Manolache, Iulian M. Niculae, Simona R. Gr...

Biological invasions are one of the main drivers of modern human-induced species losses. Research on the distribution of alien species and their pathways of introduction is essential for understanding and tackling the invasion process. A comprehensive overview on invasive alien plant (IAP) species in Romania is lacking. With this paper, we aim to c...

In recent years, new settlement mapping products have become available at the global and continental scale. Although accuracy assessments have indicated the high quality of these products, assessments were performed mainly on urban areas. However, there is also a need to monitor rural settlement development, as it is often located in proximity to b...

The present content is part of the published paper Palka, G., Oliveira, E., Pagliarin, S., & Hersperger, A. M. (2021). Strategic spatial planning and efficacy: an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach in Lyon and Copenhagen. European planning studies, 29(6), 1174-1192. It contains the interviews, the survey, the report explaining survey and a x...

The present content is part of the published paper Palka, G., Oliveira, E., Pagliarin, S., & Hersperger, A. M. (2021). Strategic spatial planning and efficacy: an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach in Lyon and Copenhagen. European planning studies, 29(6), 1174-1192. It contains the jupyter notebook and sample data to compute Analytical Hiera...

To halt land take in Europe, the European Union set a “no net land take by 2050″ target in 2011. However, land take continues to occur in European countries, with recent studies suggesting that local decision-making is playing a major role in these land-use conversions. In this study, we investigated how urban growth boundaries (UGBs) are used by l...

Parcul Natural Porţile de Fier: monografie; Invitație în Parcul Natural Porțile de Fier Maria Pătroescu, Laurențiu Rozylowicz, Marian C. Jiplea; Parcul Natural Porțile de Fier. Repere administrative și legislative Mihai R. Niță, Marian C. Jiplea, Diana A. Onose, Maria Pătroescu; Potențialul ecologic al Parcului Natural Porțile de Fier Stelu...

Context Landscape ecology as an interdisciplinary science has great potential to inform landscape planning, an integrated, collaborative practice on a regional scale. It is commonly assumed that landscape ecological concepts play a key role in this quest. Objectives The aim of the paper is to identify landscape ecological concepts that are current...

The looming climate crisis and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the importance of green infrastructure in and around cities, prompting an urgent call for more functional and sustainable urban planning and design. A number of recent studies have shown that green infrastructure offers a wide range of ecosystem functions and services ess...

Global changes impact the human-environment relationship, and, in particular, they affect the provision of ecosystem services. Mountain ecosystems provide a wide range of such services, but they are highly sensitive and vulnerable to change due to various human pressures and natural processes. We conducted a literature survey that focused on two ma...

The conversion of open space to built land is a key feature of urban-rural transformations. In many countries, urban sprawl represents the dominant mode of urban growth. Against this background, urban growth management plays a crucial role in mediating between diverse spatial requirements and curbing sprawl-like land-use patterns, but its effective...

Globally, planning instruments help shape the development of places under uncertain future conditions. In the context of a multi-level planning system, both land-use and strategic spatial plans are available, mandated by different policies and adopted by various authorities. Notwithstanding the excellent support consistency among such plans can pro...

Globally, built-up development is taking place at unprecedented rates. To mitigate and limit its effects, recent scientific and spatial planning communities call for built-up management to be addressed on broader scales, from regional to national, and coordinated with multiple policy domains. In this paper, we aimed to analyze the evolution and imp...

Among land transformations, agricultural land abandonment is increasingly attracting attention of both the scientific community and the policy makers. However, studies have often showed contradictory findings on agricultural land abandonment. This is because, land abandonment is a process which is often differently defined, measured, studied and co...

Green spaces are a key component of urban green infrastructures (UGI). The principles that define UGI are integration with other urban infrastructures, multifunctionality, connectivity at different spatial scales and from different perspectives. This paper aims to assess the potential of applying the UGI principles taking as case studies the urban...

Cities and urban regions have become central to ensuring a sustainable future. Many regions employ strategic spatial planning, a transformative and integrative public-sector-led activity, to create a coherent spatial development strategy in order to pursue sustainable development. Due to its encompassing, cross-sectoral qualities, landscape science...

Strategic spatial planning is increasingly practised throughout the world to develop a coordinated vision for guiding the medium- to long-term development of urban regions. However, from a theoretical and conceptual perspective, strategic spatial planning is hard to grasp, as it is multidimensional, embedded in sociopolitical and institutional comp...

Fragmentation is a complex issue and the way it is framed will impact on policy decisions. The Czech Republic has adopted several strategic policy documents in spatial planning and environmental domains that address fragmentation. However, these documents differ in how they frame fragmentation. Our goal was to evaluate the differences in 1) framing...

Urban land and rural land are typically represented as homogenous and mutually exclusive classes in land change analyses. As a result, differences in urban land use intensity, as well as mosaic landscapes combining urban and rural land uses are not represented. In this study we explore the distribution of urban land and urban land use intensity in...

The future development of urban regions is frequently envisioned through strategic spatial plans. The main objectives and means of spatial development contained in these documents, called planning intentions, can be fragmented and are commonly presented throughout the planning document in text, graphs, tables, diagrams, and maps. Presentation of th...

Urban and peri-urban agriculture is attracting new attention in the context of growing interests in sustainability and resilience. Although much research has been done in this field, little is known about pastoralism and its impact on urban and peri-urban settings. In this paper, we discuss the contribution of pastoral practices to urban sustainabi...

Die zahlreichen urbanen Räume in Europa weisen bei aller Verschiedenheit eine Gemeinsamkeit auf: Sie werden immer grösser. Dieser scheinbar unaufhaltsame Entwicklungsprozess geht meist zulasten der unbebauten Landschaft. Die Folgen: Neue Siedlungen verdrängen Felder und Wiesen; neue Autobahnen, Flughäfen oder Industrieanlagen zerschneiden Lebensräu...

The numerous urban areas in Europe have, despite all their differences, one thing in common: They are all becoming larger. This apparently unstoppable process is mostly at the cost of natural and semi-natural landscapes.

To date land-change science has devoted little attention to spatial policy and planning in urban landscapes despite the widely accepted premise that planning affects urban land change. This is primarily due to lack of relevant data and an underdeveloped theoretical understanding regarding the impact of spatial planning on urban land change. To be a...

Cities undergoing climate change and rapid urbanization are faced with significant transformational processes that affect the environment and society, challenging them to become more sustainable and resilient. The promotion of nature-based solutions represents an efficient approach to meet sustainability targets in cities and improve the quality of...

Local plans are key components of municipal planning and scholars have developed methodologies to evaluate them. However, the purpose and use of local plans may vary, making their evaluation challenging, especially in comparative studies. In this context, existing evaluation methodologies that target local plans do not always account for the purpos...

Green infrastructure (GI) has been described as a hybridized, umbrella, or most often, holistic concept (Mell et al., 2017; Wright, 2011). Not only increasingly popular, but also evolving at a fast pace, many scholars emphasize the dynamic and multi-layered understanding of GI as evolving from backgrounds of the people engaged in GI research and pl...

The evaluation of spatial planning results, or outcomes, has been rather neglected by scholars and practitioners. The causes of this neglect are linked to the characteristics of the planning systems in use or difficulties in quantifying results. To advance the state of the art of outcome evaluation, this paper focuses on assessing the implementatio...

An increasing number of subnational government bodies mandate municipalities to establish a vision for their future development with a local plan. Outside the U.S., few studies have assessed whether these mandates succeed at increasing formal quality, policy focus and implementation of local plans. In addition, the reasons that prompt governments t...

Studies have shown that spatial information on abandoned land could play an important role in urban land management, as land abandonment was proven capable of revealing future trajectories of change. However, mapping land abandonment with traditional methods (e.g., field work, digitization of aerial images) can be time consuming, expensive, and req...

The evaluation of spatial planning results, or outcomes, has been rather neglected by scholars and practitioners. The causes of this neglect are linked to the characteristics of the planning systems in use or difficulties in quantifying results. To advance the state of the art of outcome evaluation, this paper focuses on assessing the implementatio...

Landscape is in continuous change since the human society started to exploit it. The driving forces for land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes might be considered divers, but one of the main cause is the natural resources accessibility. Oil resources shaped, indirectly, the landscape worldwide, being a direct driving force for LULC change patterns...

The compact city is regarded as an important concept in promoting sustainable development, especially within the European Union. The socialist urban planning system maintained a high compactness of the urban areas through almost exclusive predominance of the public sector in housing provision, and ideological nature of the planning strategies. Afte...

Urban expansion is increasingly gaining attention in Europe, and also in Romania. For control measures to be proposed, there is a need to identify the drivers behind dynamics of urban areas. The aim of our paper is to identify the factors that drive urban expansion in Romania. As they vary at different governance levels, we focused our analysis on...

The educational institutions represent the main components of sustainability promotion in our society. Waste management is one of the challenges that educational institutions have to face in accomplishing sustainability goals. In Bucharest, 457 educational institutions (pre-schools, primary and secondary schools, high schools, special schools) were...

The paper aims was to analyze the dynamic of abandoned land in Bucharest. Changes analysis was based on landscape metrics interpretation. The results showed in increasing surface trend, with abandonment appearing mostly in former exurban agricultural areas. The obtained values can be put under the incidence of rapid legislative and planning practic...