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BRAILA ISLANDS (ROMANIA)

OPERATING INSTITUTE: Universitatea din Bucuresti - Centrul de Cercetare in Ecologie Sistemica si Sustenabilitate/University of Bucharest - Research Centre in Systems Ecology and Sustainability.

MAIN PURPOSE: Biodiversity, biogeo-chemistry, land use change, ecosystem services, and climate change, management and sustainability.

ECOSYSTEM TYPE: Riparian vegetation, rice fields, agricultural lands and crops, poplar forest, marshland, large rivers.

EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENTS: N and C fertilisation, grassland and forest, random block design. Five blocks are randomly distributed among all suitable substrates within an area of about 20x20m, with at least 2m between blocks. Blocks are repeated 5 times.

LOCALISATION: 44.862908947624724 27.83203125

FACILITIES: The Braila Islands long term socio-ecological research (LTSER) platform offers a unique combination of ongoing long-term measurements of regional climate, hydrology, nutrients in sediments and water, benthic community structure, aquatic, terrestrial and wetland vegetation structure and productivity, and aquatic birds community structure, coupled with more recent developments in monitoring sensors and research infrastructure.
The platform is composed of:

  • One research facility located in the city of Braila equipped with the necessary communication and transport facilities for the field work;
  • A series of field and research monitoring stations (sampling points) covering the spatial heterogeneity of the LTSER platform in terms of habitat types (terrestrial, i.e. farms, grasslands and forests, aquatic, i.e. shallow lakes and the Danube river, and marshes);
  • One complex intensive monitoring and research station (equipped with meteo and hydrological sensors for real time measurements and other equipment for research activities as well as with portable equipment for long term CO2 soil measurement (LICOR);
  • One complete automated real time measurements hydrological station (for ground water analysis - including depth wells);
  • A research vessel hosting up to 6 researchers and equipped with the necessary instruments for both sample collection as well as primary analysis of different samples, field equipment including automatic analyser for algae classes, YSI for real time water analysis (for pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, nutrients);
  • A laboratory located in Bucharest and used for complex analysis such as DOC (Dissolved organic Carbon), CHNS analyser, automatic analyser for nutrients, heavy metals using atomic spectro-photometers.

The Bucharest facility also  includes a complete GIS and modelling laboratory equipped with software for integrated analysis of the results.

CONTACT: M. ADAMESCU (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

RECENT PUBLICATIONS:
● Vadineanu, A., 2009, Deterioration and Rehabilitation of the Lower Danube Wetlands System, in Maltby et al. (Eds.) The Wetlands Handbook, Maltby, E. (Ed.) Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 876–907.
● Vaidianu, M. N., Adamescu, M. C., M. Wildenberg, C. Tetelea, 2014. Understanding Public Participation and Perceptions of Stakeholders for a Better Management in Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve (Romania), Fuzzy Cognitive Maps for Applied Sciences and Engineering Intelligent Systems Reference Library Springer Volume 54, 2014, 355–374. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39739-4_19

 

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