Environmental fragility in a mining area is evaluated both in terms of its biophysical (natural) and socio-economic components and their anthropogenic interactions. We identified multiple criteria and indicators for this task, but then reduced these according to responses given by 60 experts in domains related to spatial planning. We used the selected criteria and indicators to develop environment fragility indices for each territorial administrative unit (LAU2) in Gorj County in south-western Romania. The resulting indices reveal quite large spatial variations in fragility and evidence that highly fragile human and physical environments are to some extent intertwined. In this respect, such environmental components as climate, soils, ecosystems, natural hazards and economic issues provide constraints on human activities, whilst humans themselves can, without sufficient care, increase fragility and adversely affect the quality of living environments for present and future generations. We also explore how such estimates of natural and anthropogenic fragility might enable better specific planning for local and regional development that aims to ameliorate both environmental and human adversity in an integrated way.

Several factors contribute to the lower quality of living of post-communist countries like Romania, such as housing quality, access to basic infrastructure or services including healthcare, and low income and education levels. To evaluate to what extent the quality of living is related to social and economic factors, including access to medical services, a field questionnaire was applied to 703 respondents from 8 settlements located in the South-East of Romania. Using the Principal Component Analysis, four determinants were selected to compute a Quality of Living Index (QoLI): sewage, room surface per dweller, dwelling accessibility and fuel use for cooking. The QoLI computed for each respondent varied between 29.7 and 94.8 with a mean value of 58.5. It was directly related to the level of education and income and with several healthcare parameters. The mean value for each Local Administrative Unit was used to establish a ranking, with the commune of Mihail Kogălniceanu (Constanța county) having the highest average QoLI, and the commune of Brăești (Buzău county) having the lowest average QoLI. The QoLI of investigated settlements was in line with the results reported by other studies that assessed the socio-economic development of towns and it can be used as a tool to establish the level of living conditions and to prioritize the need of intervention.

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