English Version - United Nations Development Programme Romania

Part II: Evaluation of the Potential for Sustainable Development in Romania
CHAPTER 4
Evaluation and Conservation of Natural Resources
In order to ensure a sustainable socio-economic development it is absolutely essential to ensure a
varied and balanced natural resource structure and its use within the supportive limits of its constituting
elements.
4.1 The Atmosphere
The global impact of human activities on the atmosphere can lead to long-term effects on the
climate, to the green house effect with its entire well known range of local and global consequences, and
to the reduction of the ozone layer. To this situation with long-term consequences, which can be observed
globally, one must add regional phenomena with similarly dangerous results, even though, at first sight,
they do not appear very clearly to be as lasting as the climatic changes. It is obvious that the acidification
of (both wet and dry) precipitates from the atmosphere, with negative effects on the soil, on the surface
and subsoil water reservoirs, on the flora and fauna and the deforestation (a process seen in the past in
Europe and at present in Africa, Asia and South America), introduce alterations in the carbon cycle, in the
photosynthesis mechanism and in the Earth’s albedo and represent additional elements capable to increase
pollution and cause regional climatic changes. Finally, on a local scale, in urban and/or industrial areas,
which typically have large primary energy needs, periods of intense pollution lasting a few hours or days
contaminated areas of dozens of square miles. These areas of intensive human and industrial activity,
spewing millions of tons of polluting agents into the atmosphere, continue to be observed at a local and
global level, where the measures to protect the environment are expected to be applied with maximum
efficiency.
a) Pollution of the atmosphere
In evaluating the impact caused by the human activities on the atmosphere in Romania one must
take into account the failure to establish an integrated environment monitoring system capable to obtain
and check the data and to create and use a data base connected to the environment-related information
system. As a result, information is scarce and public awareness is low. Nevertheless, for information
purposes, the data included in the Environment Protection Strategy for 1996 could be used, since the
institutions with responsibilities in the area have not published further data. In the 1989-1994 period, the
emissions of polluting agents into the atmosphere were as follows:
Table 4.1
Pollutant releases in the atmosphere in the 1989 – 1994 period (kg/yr inhab.)
Polluting agents
Year
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994
SO x 65.1 56.5 44.6 41.0 40.0 40.0
NO x 25.0 23.0 20.0 15.0 13.0 14.0
SOVNM 36.1 33.3 29.2 27.0 27.3 28.0
NH 4 14.7 12.9 11.5 11.0 9.6 10.0
SOVNM – volatile organic substances, others than methane
Source: The Environment Protection Strategy, MAPPM, Bucharest, 1996
A decrease in the emission of polluting agents may be noticed between 1989 and 1994. This fact,
as the 1992 World Bank Project points out, is due to the economic decline and was a typical subregional
characteristic in the evolution of air pollution in Central and Eastern Europe. It is not yet possible
to give a synthetic description of the concentration of pollutants for Romania. The lack of local air-
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