The continental bioregion covers over a quarter of the territory of the European Union, including in whole or in part, the territory of 13 EU Member States. A comparison of the percentage of coverage for each bioregion in the EU shows that the continental bioregion occupies 29.3% of the EU territory, ranking first among all nine bioregions in the EU Member States. On the Romanian territory there are five biogeographical regions established at European level: continental, alpine, Pannonian, Pontic (Black Sea) and steppe (present only in Romania). The purpose of this paper is to present the number and distribution of protected natural areas, their area and share, in the continental biogeographic region of Romania. For the elaboration of this study there were used: geospatial data, Digital Elevation model with spatial resolution at 25 m and auxiliary geospatial data. The continental bioregion overlaps on large areas in Romania, in the central, southern and northeastern part, on 13,469,987.94 ha, which means 56.5% of Romania's territory. The protected natural areas in the continental biogeographical region were analyzed by categories, in terms of occupied territory, but also in terms of interrelationships between them. On the Romanian territory, from the continental biogeographical region, 3,629,684.90 ha, respectively 26.94%, are included in different categories of protected natural areas, distributed as follows: SPAs = 1,393,100.90 ha (38.38% from the territory) divided into 95 entities; SCIs = 1,390,611.97 ha (38.31% of the territory), divided into 272 entities; RORMS on the surface of 340,770.38 ha (9.39% of the territory), divided into 9 entities; NP on the area of 313,354.78 ha (8.63% of the territory), divided into 11 units; NP on the area of 103,430.19 ha (2.85% of the territory), divided into 7 units; RN on the surface of 88,348.81 ha (2.43% of the territory), divided into 425 entities, RS on the surface of 37.78 ha, with a single entity; MN on the surface of 30.07 ha, with a single entity. Through the data provided in the paper, we wanted to present a detailed situation of protected natural areas in the continental bioregion in Romania, compared to the entire bioregion in the EU.

biogeographical regions, continental bioregion, coverage, protected areas.

environmental engineering

Presentation: poster