This study explores religious diversity in Romania and how the trends of indices of religious fractionalization and polarization manifest at the county level in a post-communist period. The county level was selected as the relevant level for analysis due to its more clearly visible spatial dynamics with regard to religions. Recent studies have revealed that the erosion of diversity is an important aspect for any country and needs to be considered as an important aspect of democracy. This paper highlights how digital mapping of religious polarization and fractionalization in Romania has been generally maintained, although the regions of Transylvania, Banat, Dobrogea and Western Moldova remain areas in which there are different religions. Other than the general aspect of religious diversity depending on ethnic trends, there has been a rise of Pentecostals and Baptists at the county level. This aspect has further implications for our study, which calls for creating new institutions for dialogue between majority Orthodox communities and Protestants, not only so that potential conflicts do not appear between Orthodox and emerging religious communities but also to ensure objective, cultural, religious coherence. Our maps revealed the distribution patterns and the temporal evolution of religious denominations for the 1992–2011 period. The major line of originality in our research rests in the findings that after conducting a bivariate spatial autocorrelation analysis of religious fractionalization and polarization, we were able to identify two distinct clusters with spatial overlap over historical provinces.

The common toad (Bufo bufo) is a widespread species in Europe, with accidental occurrence in caves. This study reports the first case of breeding of B. bufo in a natural cave in the Carpathian Mountains. The breeding activity was observed at the end of May and the beginning of June. We identified pairs of common toads in axillary amplexus, egg strings and tadpoles up to a distance of 97 m inside the cave. We hypothesized that there is an active selection of some cave sites as breeding habitat and that the egg deposition is not randomly distributed inside the cave. In 25 sample points, we recorded ten cave environmental features and we assessed the relationship between egg strings presence and environmental features by performing a bias reduction in binomial-response generalized linear model. The results revealed that the strongest ecological factor determining the selection of breeding areas inside the cave was water flow velocity. The presence of light, although an important environmental feature, was not the most determining factor in breeding site selection, as toads successfully entered in completely dark environments to lay eggs in hydrologically favourable places. This study provides new information about the cave breeding of Bufo bufo and highlights the environmental features determining the common toad’s breeding site selection.

This study explores religious diversity in Romania and how the trends of indices of religious fractionalization and polarization manifest at the county level in the post-communist period. The county is selected as the relevant level for analysis due to its spatial confessional dynamics being more clearly visible. Recent studies have revealed that erosion of diversity represents an important aspect for any country and needs to be considered as an important aspect of democracy. This paper highlights that religious polarization and fractionalization in Romania has been generally maintained, although the regions of Transylvania, Banat, Dobrogea and Western Moldova remain areas where there are different confessions. Besides the general aspect of religion diversity depending the ethnic trends, there is a rise of Pentecostals and Baptists at the county level. This aspect can inform policymakers to create new institutions for dialogue between majority Orthodox communities and Protestants so that potential conflicts do not appear between the Orthodox and emerging religious communities, but also to ensure objective, cultural, religious coherence.

Geographical studies and environment protection research

Snow avalanches are a denudational process and natural hazard that can severely damage tourist infrastructure, roads and forests and lead to injury and loss of life. Political and socio-economic changes in mountain landscapes also affect avalanche activity. This study was carried out in the Făgăraş Mountains, a representative mountain unit in the Southern-Romanian Carpathians, which is dominated by glacial and periglacial relief, high altitudes, high snow cover thickness, snow persistence of about 8-9 months per year and high occurrence of avalanche hazards.Our analysis of the location, spatial extent and number of avalanche events was based on extensive documentation using old photographs, maps, papers and statistics from Mountain Rescuer Public Services databases. We also used dendrogeomorphological data with a 130-year chronology, from which we extracted the frequency, magnitude and spatial extent, satellite images and event simulations using the RAMMS avalanche module in the most affected area of the Fagaras Mountains, the Balea-Capra glacier sector. The study data were collected between 1880 and 2020, in three different periods, each with political and socio-economic peculiarities: the Romanian Kingdom Period (1880-1945), the Communist Period (1946-1989) and the Post-Communist Period (1990-present). In the first period, the tourist infrastructure was modest with no tourist traffic and the avalanche danger was not recognized. Only three avalanche events with human casualties were recorded. In the communist period 23 avalanche events were recorded. In the post-communist period, 75 avalanche events were recorded. Avalanche activity has strongly interfered with the emergence of new elements of tourist infrastructure such as huts, alpine refuges and the Transfăgărășan highway but also with the increasing exposure of tourists especially in the last 20 years. This is why the Făgăraş Mountains are a real avalanche hot spot in the Romanian Carpathians, accounting for 51.2% of fatalities and 57.4% of injuries/burials.Studies carried out in the Romanian Carpathians have shown that climate warming is more evident between 1,000 and 1,500 m than at higher altitudes where most avalanches have been recorded. In this context, it is difficult to determine that the frequency and spatial extent of avalanches is determined by global change.