THE TOURIST EXPLOITATION OF THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF OCNA MUREȘ – AS A FACTOR OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC WELL-BEING AND AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE MAJOR IMPACT CONSEQUENCES INDUCED BY FLOODS IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

Abstract

Human society, as an integral part of the environment, is subject to the consequences of the various specific natural phenomena and processes. Similarly, human intervention exerts its own impact on the environment, the influences being reciprocal. In the Anthropocene, the current geological period of Earth’s existence, some phenomena, through their way of manifestation, can produce dramatic changes in certain environments, consequently being categorized as dangerous by humans. In the temperate zone, these include: earthquakes, landslides, large-scale storms, floods, prolonged droughts, fires, pollution, epidemics, etc., with various causes, from natural to anthropogenic or mixed. In the context of the increasingly significant phenomena related to climate change, the concerns in the field of the cultural landscape were naturally joined by those related to the study of the impact of various risks within it. As a research area, the surface of the city of Ocna Mureș, closely linked to the middle course of the Mureș River, lends itself to the investigation of the impact of these types of risks connected with the evolution of the local cultural landscape. Numerous floods have occurred over time causing immense damage to the city and, at the same time, brought substantial changes to the elements of the environment and the cultural landscape as a whole. The perpetual decline of the local economy, especially of the mining and processing industry, starting from the 1990s until recently, can facilitate the emergence of the opportunity for tourism capitalization of the cultural landscape, marked to a large extent by the existence of the salt resource; all this in accordance with the principles of sustainable development and careful management of potential environmental risks. These basic aspects regarding the risk of floods and the opportunity for the tourism exploitation of the local cultural landscape, stated previously, shall be analysed, argued and highlighted in the paper.