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LIS/GIS FOR THE DANUBE DELTA 
Dr .eng. Nicolae Zegheru 
Eng. Mihail Gabriel Albotà 
Senior Researchers, I.6.F.C.0.T., Romania 
Commission No. IV 
The Danube Delta, as a biosphere reserva- 
tion, has called both the Romanian govern- 
ment and international institution atten- 
tions to itself. The Danube Delta should 
be thoroughly investigated to carry out any 
efficient work. Till now, various carto- 
graphic documents have been compiled, but 
the classical cartographic products cannot 
answer the present-day and future require- 
ments any longer. This paper describes - 
LIS/GIS which are under development for the 
respective zone, 
Key Words: Cartographic, GIS/LIS, Remote 
Sensing Application. 
The Danube Delta is the Danube River mouth 
into the Black Sea. It is the second Euro- 
pean deltafícation as against the Volga 
Delta. The delta is the newest Romanian 
land, which landscape is featured by a 
moisture and flooding land permanently 
changeable under the influence of both the 
fluid flow (about 200 cubic km.water) and 
the solid one (about 60 M. to/year alluvial 
deposits). The Danube River is 2860 km.long 
and has a 800,500 sq.km.reception basin. 
That delta is extending over its three 
branches, i.e. Chilia, Sulipa and Sf.Gheor- 
ghe, near-by the Northen 45 parallel.The 
whole delta surface covers about 5000 sq. 
km, out of which 2540 sq.km.are delineated 
by its three branches. Some other times, 
that delta entirely belonged to the Roma- 
nian territory; nowadays, only 4540 sq.km. 
are to be found within the Romanian bounda- 
ries. (see Figure 1). 
The Danube Delta with a 0.52 m.average 
height shows a general tendency to extend 
itself, owing to:(1) a continental platform 
just at the river mouth discharging into 
the Black Sea;(2) the large alluvial de- 
posits which the river carries;(3) very 
small tides (about 10 cm); (4) favourable 
marine currents. 
Inside the delta there are pre-deltaic land 
islands, fluvial and fluvial-sea banks 
showing a dune-like relief, many lakes, 
pools and marshes, backwater, channels and 
canals, large areas covered by water vege- 
tation (reed, rush, sedge) and forestry 
vegetation, as well. The swamp vegetation 
is prevailing. The lands ever-coveried by 
water amount to almost 80 per cent of the 
delta area. There are various species of 
birds and fishes all over the delta. There 
are to be found some human settlements,i.e. 
705 
L.Razim 
  
Figure 1. The Danube Delta Sketch 
a small town and 28 villages over the del- 
taic steady lands. For some years, five 
natural ornithologic and forestry reserva- 
tions over large areas (more than 400 sq. 
km) have been established; since 1991,the 
whole Danube Delta has been stated as a 
biosphere reservation. Indeed, it is the 
largest biosphere reservation in Europe, 
as well as, the most beautiful and interes- 
ting one all over the world. 
To know and protect the delta proper to its 
new state-of-art, it is a sine qua non con- 
dition to develop a LIS/GIS providing in- 
formation required, firstly, by its envi- 
ronmental monitoring and, secondly, by many 
institutes and bodies undertaking activities 
within the respective zone. 
In the last decades, the geodetic and level- 
ling networks have been established, aerial 
photographs for various purposes, topogra- 
phical ones mainly, have been periodically