Dr Florin-Constantin Mihai
email: mihai.florinconstantin@gmail.com

Dr Ionut Minea

Prof. Dr Adrian Grozavu

ASSESSMENT OF WASTE DUMPING PRACTICES IN MOUNTAIN CREEKS

Keywords: waste dumping, water pollution, waste collection, mountain area, floods

The paper examines the exposure of mountain creeks towards illegal waste disposal practices related to the lack of waste collection services in rural areas of Romania prior to EU accession and the low waste collection efficiency following the closure of rural wild dumps in 2009-2010. The paper estimates the amounts of household waste uncollected and disposed in selected small Carpathian rivers in the North-East development region. The expansion of built-up areas along the water courses leads to waste dumping practices across mountain villages in the context of poor waste management facilities. Particular morphology of villages and hydrological characteristics of the creeks may influence the magnitude of such bad practices. The paper points out the role of flash floods in cleaning upstream catchments from debris, thus, polluting the downstream rivers and human settlements. An efficient waste collection system in mountain areas has a crucial role to play in mitigating and ultimately preventing the waste dumping practices in water bodies.

INTRODUCTION

Poor waste management facilities cause severe pollution of water bodies in the proximity of human settlements [START_REF] Han | Characteristics and management of domestic waste in the rural area of Southwest China[END_REF]. Plastic pollution is an emerging environmental threat for marine and river ecosystems [START_REF] Schmidt | Export of Plastic Debris by Rivers into the Sea[END_REF]. Developing and transition countries are facing serious difficulties in providing access to sound waste management services, especially in rural regions [START_REF] Liu | Rural domestic waste disposal: an empirical analysis in five provinces of China[END_REF]. Open dumps are frequently located on riverbanks or on floodplains of rivers [START_REF] Malinowski | Characteristics of Illegal Dumping Sites -Case Study: Watercourses[END_REF]. Mountain regions raise particular challenges in the waste management options due to the geographical barriers [START_REF] Semernya | Waste management outlook for mountain regions: Sources and solutions[END_REF]. The lack or poor waste collection schemes in such regions lead to a high exposure of river networks as main waste dumping sites for mountain settlements. This situation still occurs in rural Romania. The paper assesses the exposure of nine small rivers from the Eastern Carpathians to illegal waste disposal practices prior and after the closure of rural dumpsites with a deadline in July 2009 according to the Government Decision Nr. 349/2005 which transposes the EU Landfill Directive 1999/31 [6].

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Nine mountain creeks of Eastern Carpathians are selected from each county of North-East region of Romania such as Putna, Suha Mare, Suha Mica (Suceava county), Calu, Iapa, Nechit (Neamt county) and Ciughes, Asau, and Casin (Bacau county). These water bodies pass throughout 24 villages being exposed to uncontrolled waste disposal practices because of the lack or poor coverage of waste collection services until the closure of rural dumpsites in 2009 followed by inefficient rural waste collection schemes. Therefore, the time scale analysis comprises ten years divided into two main intervals such as 2004-2008 characterized by the lack of waste collection services (noWCS scenario) and 2009-2013 characterized by a low collection efficiency (WCS40) with illegal dumping practices detected by field observations, mass-media and civil society. The local authority of Manastirea Casin commune from Bacau county revealed that collection efficiency was of maximum 30% of total household waste generated prior the implementation of a Phare project in October 2010 which further support the parameter WCS40 as a relevant one within the study area for the period 2009-2013.

The paper calculates the potential amount of household waste uncontrolled disposed at village level based on following equations [START_REF] Mihai | Territorial disparities in municipal waste management Case study: Neamt County[END_REF]. : Q bw -biodegradable fraction of household waste (62% of total household solid waste) Q r -recyclables (metals, paper, and cardboard, plastics, glass, wood) have a ratio of 23.5%

Q ud = {Q wu -[( Q wu -0.7 * Q bw ) + ( Q wu -0.1 * Q r )]} Q wu =
The data for these waste fractions are determined from the amounts of waste uncollected (Q wu ) using the municipal waste composition data specific for rural areas provided by the regional waste management plan [START_REF]Regional waste management plan of North East Region[END_REF]. Home composting and animal feed is a major diversion route from the wild dump as stipulated by Local Environmental Protection Agencies. Similar considerations are valid in Poland, where 70% of biowaste is assumed to be treated at household level via home composting, animal feed and as solid fuels for furnaces [10] while in China recovery of biowaste is over 80% [START_REF] Liu | Rural domestic waste disposal: an empirical analysis in five provinces of China[END_REF]. Also, a part of dry recyclables may be reused, recovered or recycled at the household level (0.1).

The next stage is to calculate the amounts of waste disposed by rural localities along a riverbed or creek bank (Q wr ), in the proximity of built-up areas. This indicator is weighted based on the average distance of rivers/creeks to the outer limit of the built-up area. The calculations are made according to the relation [7]: Q wr (t.yr -1 ) = (Q ud * -Q ud *C ef ) *W dist , Q wr -waste estimated to be illegally disposed on river banks / into rivers or creeks by a locality (village).

W dist = weighting factor of river dumping practice according to the average distance between the built-up area of a locality (village) and the river/creek in the proximity.

The W dist has the following values [START_REF] Mihai | Territorial disparities in municipal waste management Case study: Neamt County[END_REF].: 0.9 (1-199m), 0.8 (200-399m), 0.6 (400-599m), 0.4 (600-799m), 0.2 (800-1000m); C efcollection efficiency factor. Such distances are measured using satellite images provided by Google Earth images taking into consideration the outer limit of the built-up area (village) towards the creek or rivers. In case the villages that are passed by other tributaries, the measuring point is performed for the closest water body. This model points out that the geographical proximity of human settlement to water bodies influences the magnitude of pollution in mountain regions within a 1 km range.

HYDROLOGICAL CONTEXT

In terms of hydrological context, the river network is drained by the principal river Siret whose drainage basin is developed mostly in the mountain area. The geological features are given by the flysch deposits (represented by clay, marl, sand, and sandstones) who generate not a very high relief (the altitude is between 200 and 1500 m), but a lot of geomorphological problems in terms of landslides and soil erosion. Most of the mountain area drained by tributaries of Siret River is quite fragmented (the average drainage density network is 1.2 km/km 2 ) and is affected by the human activities developed along river system in the last centuries. The rivers we analyze in this study drain the central and north-part of the Eastern Carpathians. Their drainage basins are not very developed (see table 1), but we chose to analyze them because the lack of huge hydro technical works along their valleys and because their response, which is quite natural, to any impact. In fact, the highest length of the river and drainage basin surface has Casin River with 54 km length and 308 km 2 surface. Majority of the rivers had lengths beneath 30 km and drainage basins surface no more than 120 km 2 . Most of the basins are covered with forests; the forested area varies between 23 and 41% of the entire surface of the basins. Another important parameter to analyze is the slope of the basins that varies between 18 to 47‰, an important factor in washing the debris out of the river network. An important feature of this river network is the flashfloods occurrence, the entire area being affected in the last decades. For example, only for the last decade there were at least five sequences (2004,2005,2008, 2010 and 2011) of catastrophic floods in the north-eastern part of Romania. The runoff values have not more than 3-6 m 3 /s, but in specific meteorological circumstances, with precipitation in summer time concentrated in few hours (more than 100 mm in 4 or 5 hours), the values of the flow increase to 100 -150 m 3 /s. The causes of this kind of extraordinary flashfloods can be found in the deforestation activities, increased in the last three decades along whole Romanian mountains, and also in the climate changes impact on river networks manifested by the concentration of precipitation in summer time with a huge impact in rivers discharges [START_REF] Croitoru | The impact of climate changes on rivers discharge in Eastern Romania[END_REF].

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The selected nine creeks of Eastern Carpathians pass throughout 24 villages with 41475 inhabitants prior to EU accession and 35353 inhabitants according to the last population census (2011). There is a significant demographic decline (6122 persons) during this period explained by the emigration abroad due to the poorer socioeconomic conditions of rural communities across the North-East region. The susceptibility of water bodies to illegal disposal practices depends on the number of villages and their population along the watercourses, the geographic proximity of builtup areas to such water bodies. The most exposed creeks to illegal waste disposal practices are Asau, Casin and Suha Mica with over 300 t of household waste.

Villages 1). The same document reveals the presence of a rural dumpsite in Piatra Soimului, but on Bistrita riverbank [START_REF]Neamt County Council -Mater Plan for " Integrated Waste Management System in Neamt County[END_REF].

Neither data of National Environmental Guard (County Commissariat of Neamt) do not reveal the presence of illegal dumping sites across Calu, Iapa or Nechit creeks. In case of Bacau county, there is one dumpsite in Casin village (0.025 ha, volume of 500 m 3 ), but there is no data for Palanca (Ciunghes creek) or Asau communes. In this context, the official statistics are irrelevant in the assessment process of river dumping practices. All three communes of Suceava county reported at least a rural dumpsite on their territory such as Malini (1 ha, volume of 10000 m 3 ), Putna (0.285 ha, volume of 4725 m 3 ), Slatina (0.15 ha, volume of 1000 m 3 ). The above data suggest that all communes within the study area are dealing with illegal disposal practices mainly in the first stage (2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008), but without concrete data about the presence of such dumpsites along watercourses despite the evidence revealed by field observations. Furthermore, themed controls regarding the sanitation status of water bodies are still carried out suggesting that illegal dumping practices issues are far from being eliminated.

As an example, the following watercourses were verified in the spring season (2018) by a mixed team (Prefecture, County Water Management System, National Environmental Guard-County Commissariat, Inspectorate of Emergency Situations): Suceava, Siret, Moldovita, Moldova, Bistrita, Dorna, Putna, Suha Mare, Suha Mica. . The mountain creeks are significant contributors to the pollution of rivers during the major floods collecting the wastes disposed across all catchment areas. The environmental authorities should better monitor the illegal dumping practices with relevant data in this regard. The improvement of waste collection schemes across rural mountain localities should be an emerging priority at local and regional levels in order to seriously mitigate the magnitude of river dumping practices across Eastern Carpathians.

  waste uncollected by formal waste management services (waste operators). This indicator is calculated according to the second equation: Q wu = P * W g *365 /1000, Ppopulation of the village (noWCS scenario) W g -per capita waste generation rate = 0.3 kg.inhab.yr -1 (Population Census 2002 data for time series: 2004-2008) & 0.33 kg.inhab.day -1 , (Population Census 2011 data, timeseries 2009-2013). The per-capita waste generation rate is below the national flat rate (0.4 kg.inhab.day -1 ) as stipulated by the National Waste Management Plan (NWMP) due to poorer socioeconomic features of the study area [8].

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1. Waste dumping practices on mountain creeks (Eastern Carpathians)

Table 1 .

 1 Morphometrical data about drainage basin from Eastern Carpathian Mountains

	County River Length	Altitude (m)	Slope	Surface	Surface
			(km)	upstream downstream	(‰)	of the	covered
							basin	with forest
							(km 2 )	(ha)
	Suceava	Putna	21	1480	698	37	90	7523
		Suha	29	928	392	18	146	10324
		Mare
		Suha	26	1020	401	24	121	8222
		Mica
	Neamt	Calu	20	1100	266	42	62	5190
		Iapa	24	1180	264	31	75	6387
		Nechit	27	1200	246	35	106	4620
	Bacau Ciughes	15	1340	638	47	47	2367
		Casin	54	1240	199	19	308	22823
		Asau	39	1220	402	21	208	18644

Table 2 .

 2 The paper estimates that 2351.298 t of household solid waste were uncontrolled disposed in the watercourses, riverbanks or floodplains of mountain creeks during a decade (2004-2013) by those 24 villages within the study area as shown in table 2. Estimation of household waste dumped into or near watercourses

	County Creek Villages	Commune	Qwr_noWCS	Qwr _WCS40	Total
			(nr)		(2004-2008)	(2009-2013)	(t)
					(t)	(t)
	Suceava	Putna	2	Putna	134.299	83.956	218.255
		Suha	3	Malini	141.85	81.387	223.237
		Mare
		Suha	3	Slatina	189.665	112.181	301.846
		Mica
	Neamt	Calu	2	Piatra	194.88	95.464	290.344
				Soimului
		Iapa	2	Piatra	121.87	54.151	176.021
				Soimului
		Nechit	2	Borlesti	116.343	59.314	175.657
	Bacau	Ciughes	2	Palanca	111.844	66.054	177.898
		Casin	4	Manastirea	217.038	126.081	343.119
				Casin
				and Casin
		Asau	4	Asau	278.73	166.191	444.921

  dumped over 100 t of wastes in each mountain creek of study area due the lack or rudimentary of waste collection services prior the closure of rural dumpsites in July 2009. The presence of waste collection services reduce the amounts of waste disposed in water bodies even at a low collection efficiency (844.83 t) compared with worse case situation from the previous period (1506.63 t). In fact, limited waste collection services were available in rural municipalities across all regions of Suceava, Bacau, and Neamt counties prior to EU accession, which highly exposed the water bodies from all geographical regions (mountain, subcarpathian, plateau, corridor valley) to severe pollution threats. The EU funds help some rural communities to provide the first source separate waste collection facilities. The communes of Casin and Manastirea Casin have implemented a Phare project to introduce a separate collection scheme for residual waste, glass, plastics, paper/cardboard waste fractions. The project has been finished during 2007-2010 and the inter-municipal cooperation created a public waste operator. Waste platforms each containing 4 containers (1100l) are located throughout the villages and two garbage trucks will transport the wastes towards urban landfills.

A similar project includes Piatra Soimului and Borlesti communes (Neamt county) where collection platforms are available for plastics, biowaste, paper/cardboard and residual waste. This collection system is operational since 2011 and the wastes are transported to the transfer station of Roznov city. However, field observations point out that Calu, Iapa, and Nechit mountain creeks are still exposed to illegal waste dumping practices. The master plan concerning the Integrated Waste Management System in Neamt County project, supervised by Neamt County Council, has no record of rural dumpsites for Borlesti commune despite critical waste dumping practices were detected during field observations (figure

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by a grant of the "Alexandru IoanCuza" University of Iasi, within the Research Grants program, Grant UAIC, code GI-UAIC-2017-06.


Guillaume Sacco
email: sacco.g@chu-nice.fr

Monique Thonnat

Gregory Ben Sadoun

Philippe Robert

An approach with serious exergames for assessment and stimulation of patients with neurocognitive disorders

Keywords: neurocognitive disorders, assessment, stimulation, serious games

à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

G. Sacco, M. Thonnat, G. Ben Sadoun, P. Robert. An approach with serious exergames for assessment and stimulation of patients with neurocognitive disorders. Gerontechnology 2018;17(Suppl.):<page>. Purpose We present a clinical and therapeutic approach aiming to create new care for patients with neurocognitive disorders (NCD). Enriched environment including physical and cognitive stimulation improves cognitive functions 1 . The aim of this paper is to describe a method for non-pharmacological management of NCD using serious exergames (SEG). SEG are serious video games integrating physical activity. We propose to use SEG as a tool to provide enriched environment associating physical activity and cognitive stimulation. Method We used X-Torp 2 , a SEG specially designed for patient with NCD. The patient is physically stimulated when controlling the game with both upper and lower body parts. Cognitive stimulation is realized with mini games close to classical Trail Making Test (TMT). Those mini games could also be used to assess the cognitive functions of the patient. For the stimulation, a usability-training experiment 3 was conducted on 18 patients, for 10 hours over a month. To test the relevance of the assessment, we also conducted an independent experiment to compare two versions of the TMT: a standard one with paper versus a game with X-torp. 75 subjects were enrolled: 27 healthy (HC), 27 with minor NCD, 21 with major NCD (DSM 5). Results and Discussion For the usability experiment, all patients were able to finish the game but of course with a progression speed depending on their neurocognitive disorder. Indeed, the results have showed that X-Torp was usable for patient with NCD. For the TMT experiment, the results have showed that the two versions are able to discriminate similarly HC, minor and major NCD. However, this SEG needs to be improved to generate different physical intensity during the game w.r.t. to the patient capabilities. These experiments were performed in a clinical environment during a limited time. In order to validate the benefits of this approach in the long term more experiments need to be conducted. Another important perspective is to assess the use of these serious exergames at home without any therapist. In particular, these games may improve self-esteem of the patient and could be used for a long duration if they are well adapted to the interest and physical capabilities of the patient.