EarthWatch: Romania's Patchwork of Farms

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with the NASA Earth Observatory: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ 
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Image of the Day story by  Kathryn Hansen with image interpretation by Dan Bălteanu/Romanian Academy:  https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147400/romanias-patchwork-of-farm-fields 
Adaptation to ViewSpace by Claire Blome, Margaret W. Carruthers, and Dani Player 
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Text, Earth Watch, Exploring the Blue Planet by Satellite

 

An aerial view of Romania's Patchwork of Farms

 

Text, Romania's historic Oltenia province, shown here in false color, features mountains, foothills, and plains.

 

Snow and ice, set off in light blue, cap the Southern Carpathian Mountains' higher elevations.

 

Forested areas with ample conifers and deciduous trees at higher elevations appear dark green and orange.

 

Forests with oak and beech trees, shown primarily in orange, are at lower elevations in the foothills.

 

Notice the bright green color tracing the valleys in the foothills. This is the signature of healthy crops.

 

Long, narrow farms are generally laid out perpendicular to the rivers and streams.

 

Crops are mixed with bare ground, which is highlighted by brown and red.

 

The narrow shapes of the farm plots are due to the division of land into smaller and smaller parcels over time.

 

Private plots span an average of 1 to 2 hectares (2 to 5 acres).

 

Not all land in the Oltenia Plain supports crops.

 

Desertification has given way to sand dunes in some areas. Other areas have been abandoned or deforested.

 

To learn more, go to: earth observatory dot nasa dot gov