Spatio-temporal analysis of Romania's rural population access to sanitation services in the context of EU accession

Abstract

This paper analysis the disparities between Romanian Counties regarding the spatio-temporal evolution of rural population acces to sanitation services for pre-accession period (2003-2006) and the first two years since Romania is part of the EU-27 (2007-2008) highlighting positive or negative changes occurred in this period. Romanian counties were mapped and divided into five typological classes,using multivariate analysis such as hierarchical cluster analysis method. Each class has different values of rural population served by waste collection services related to the Romania average (expressed in standard deviations). Limited access to sanitation services from rural areas lead to uncontrolled waste disposal. Despite improvement of public access to sanitation services in rural areas compared to 2003 most of population still lack access to waste collection services in 2008. In this context, implementation of the acquis communautaire on municipal waste management is difficult to achieve in rural territory.