Researchers and planners worldwide have emphasized the need for a better planning in an urbanizing world. The expansion of urbanized areas has increased people's access to modern facilities and urban infrastructures but decreased the quality of life due to social imbalances characterizing large cities. The quality of urban landscape can be used as an indicator of high or low quality of life levels. Our study proposesed the assessment of urban landscape using an Urban Landscape Quality Index (ULQI) used for mapping the landscape quality within a city. The methodology used for calculating ULQI was based on an expert assessment of the urban landscape items from a first rank city from Romania followed by the calculation of the index itself. The assessment was made at a neighbourhood level and using the generated values we were able to process a map representing the quality of the urban landscape in the inhabited areas of Ploieşti. The results were compared with the answers from a survey targeting the landscape quality perception of the locals. A 75% accuracy was recorded between the visual assessment of the urban landscape and the perception of the locals. The study showed that using visual assessment of the landscape and calculating ULQI is an efficient and useful approach that doesn’t require a high amount of resources and can generate an outline over a city in short period. ULQI values can be used by planners, landscapers or authorities in order to prioritize the areas of an urban area that need to be taken into consideration

Global changes impact the human-environment relationship, and, in particular, they affect the provision of ecosystem services. Mountain ecosystems provide a wide range of such services, but they are highly sensitive and vulnerable to change due to various human pressures and natural processes. We conducted a literature survey that focused on two main issues. The first was the identification of quantitative methods aimed at assessing the impact of land use changes in mountain regions and the related ecosystem services. The second was the analysis of the extent to which the outcomes of these assessments are useful and transferable to stakeholders. We selected papers through a keyword-driven search of the ISI Web of Knowledge and other international databases. The keywords used for the search were mountain land use change and ecosystem service. Quantitative approaches to ecosystem service assessment rely on suitable indicators, therefore land use/land cover can be used as an appropriate proxy. Landscape metrics are a powerful analytical tool; their use can increase the accuracy of assessments and facilitate the mitigation of specific phenomena, such as fragmentation or the reduction of core habitat areas. Mapping is essential: it is the basis for spatial analyzes and eases the interactions between stakeholders. Land use/land cover change is a temporal process, so both past and future approaches are meaningful. It is necessary to enhance information transfer from theory to practice. Increasing stakeholder awareness can lead to suitable management solutions, and, reciprocally, stakeholder feedback can help improve current assessment methodologies and contribute to developing new tools that are suitable for specific problems.

Biological invasions are one of the main drivers of modern human-induced species losses. Research on the distribution of alien species and their pathways of introduction is essential for understanding and tackling the invasion process. A comprehensive overview on invasive alien plant (IAP) species in Romania is lacking. With this paper, we aim to contribute to filling this gap and to provide a visualization of national patterns regarding plant species invasions, geographical origins and pathways of introductions. Based on plant species occurrence records in the published literature and herbaria we compiled a national database of 102 invasive and potentially invasive alien plant species. We georeferenced 42776 IAP species occurrences and performed an analysis of their spatial patterns. The spatial analyses revealed a biased sampling, with clear hotspots of increased sampling efforts around urban areas. We used chord diagrams to visualize the pathway of introduction and geographical origins of the IAP species, which revealed that species in Romania originate mainly in North and Central America, while the dominant pathway of plant introduction was horticulture. Our results provide an important baseline in drafting management and action plans, as invasive alien plant species represent a priority for the European Union through the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, and a good starting point for various analyses as the database is further developed and regularly updated.