Traian Draghici’s research while affiliated with University of Bucharest and other places

The sustainable implementation of highway projects requires a sensitivity analysis of the terrain and all of its components that have a direct influence on road design, construction and operation. The result of this inquiry involving GIS techniques and methods regarding environmental and economic factors helps in choosing the optimal road route, in order to meet the real-world connectivity requirements. The sensitivity analysis can be applied to road and rail infrastructure projects, aiming to develop a decision-making tool that can be employed by their potential beneficiaries, according to their purposes and interests. This paper aims to create an objective decision-making tool for transport infrastructure development in correlation with the current needs of society regarding the development of transport infrastructure in an economic sustainable manner with low environmental impact. Furthermore, the study tries to identify the best highway corridor in an area with environmental constraints (especially geomorphological), that is in balance with both environment and financial resources.

Road infrastructure projects have proven to be a challenging task, particularly in a dynamic setting, such as mountains and hillsides. Such an endeavour entails the integration and processing of cross-disciplinary research, particularly engineering and geosciences. Our study is oriented towards the geographic aspects, specifically the ones involving applied geomorphology. We aim to provide a cartographic solution that reveals the areas suitable for developing a road network, based on a geomorphologic and environmental approach. This is achieved through a GIS-based multi-criteria analysis involving raster data sets of different geodynamic factors, such as geology, pedology, gravitational processes, land use and other environmental components.