Ionut Mihai Oprea

This study analyzes aspects of place attachment in rural areas, as an element of social stability that determines attitudinal and behavioral patterns within a harmonious relationship between human beings and the environment. A higher level of place attachment generates efficient behavior patterns for the improvement of the problems caused by pollution and the degradation of natural environments. In the second section, we set out to measure the forms of manifestation of place attachment in rural areas and to identify effective strategies that can contribute to increasing the intensity of this phenomenon. We set out a study of the causality between environmental perception and place attachment. We carried out an investigation based on a questionnaire to determine the forms of manifestation of place attachment and environmental perception. We tested a statistical model to confirm or not the determining relationship between the two social phenomena. Our study also offers an original interpretation of environmental perception and explains the degree of intensity with which this phenomenon is felt at the individual level. The practical importance of this study lies in the fact that it offers a strategy proven by sociological analysis, which can be applied to stimulate an increase in intensity of the manifestation of feelings of place attachment, which ultimately leads to the spread of pro-environmental attitudinal and behavioral patterns.

This is a qualitative research based on a phenomenological perspective of understanding, that aim to captures the way in which the population of rural areas from the western part of Romania understands the terms of nature and environment. Starting from valuable scientific studies related to the relationship between man and nature, we propose an original interdisciplinary approach that combines social methodology with a geographical, ecological and land use perspective. This study aims to identify the forms in which social representations about nature and environment are outlined on the level of rural areas people perceptions. As Romania is a European Union member state, its rural areas have seen transformations and changes in detail that reflect in the environmental-geographical ambience typical of the three main relief types (mountains, hills and plains), the mixed geomorphological type, its residents’ basic aspirations and conscious attitudinal and behavioral levels. The two study benchmarks are the notions of nature and environment, raising perception sensitivities and everyday concerns belonging to the residents of the rural areas surveyed. The administrative unit of Bihor County, belonging to the northern half of the Crișana Province and comprised of rural communities in 97 villages, was selected as the study’s target area. These villages were selected in such a way that they had to meet the requirements of balance and diversity of local environmental conditions, land use and the result of changing their land cover and the socio-geodemographic conditions of the population. A series of 1576 questionnaires were administered to subjects who are over 18 years old and are aware of the reality of their places. The results of the applied tests (Levene’s test) show that the concrete factors of daily activities are very good predictors of the relationship between man and nature.