Urban landscape change in Carpathian Mountain Resorts

Mapping of urban landscape change in detail scale is a difficult task when analysis is focused on a longer period with little data available. This is also the case of Romanian resort towns, where the latest development replaces former urban structures characterized by lower densities and larger green areas with a new pattern, consisting of more compact districts. The paper focuses on mapping urban change in one of the most popular mountain resorts in Romanian Carpathians, the town of Bușteni (820–980 m), located along the Upper Prahova Valley, at the bottom of Bucegi Massif. This research integrates data from historical aerial photos, photogrammetrically processed (1969) as well as digital orthophotos (2012). For an adequate representation, we created a database containing two vector datasets (buildings), corresponding to both historical moments, in order to calculate the Built-up Index (BI). The change map features, in detail scale, the difference in urban patterns, concerning their spatial distribution and intensity. This type of analysis is a very useful instrument in urban planning, protected area designing and touristic resort development.