The Changes Occurred in the Land Use from the Eastern Part of Romania after 1989 - Remote Sensing and GIS Application

The political change in the Romanian society after 1989 Revolution, has clear consequences on all socio-economic aspects. This article presents the land use changes and their effects on the environment. The return to private property, from the state ownership, as a result of legislative change with the - Law 18/1991 and Law 169/1997 - has confused all operational agro- systems, and has led to a strong division of the agricultural parcels. The purpose of this article is to analyze the effects of legislative measures on land use in the region of north-eastern Romania, through Remote Sensing and GIS but also to emphasize the technical difficulties, encountered during the research process. We used Landsat and Spot Images, topographic maps and direct observation of the field. The identified changes may be reversible (the transition from arable to pasture) or final (the passage of the arable to construction), in the latter case the effect on the environment being stronger. There was also strong structural changes such as fragmentation of operating fields, the increasing density of built space in cities, the reduction of forest areas etc