Water, as the vital resource for life, is subject of several challenges in the contemporary world. One challenge is to complete supplied it in the best parameters for the entire world population, from crowded cities to remote areas. An assessment upon the state of population water supply is fundamental for establishing and adopting measures and policies for a sustainable management of this resource. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the population's perception regarding the water supply in Pitești City, Argeș County, Romania. For this study, a cross-sectional survey was used, disseminated online to the Pitești residents. The results showed both the strengths and some weaknesses of the water supply in Pitești. About 60% of those surveyed have a very good and good opinion about the quality of water supply services in Pitești City, while the remaining 40% are more reserved about it. The study could help local authority to establish a sustainable water management for urban residents.

This study assesses the opportunities and challenges for ecotourism in Dhanushadham Protected Forest of Nepal using a mixed-methods approach involving direct observations, household surveys, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. Local perceptions of ecotourism are explored and the key factors influencing its development are identified. The findings reveal the Dhanushadham's significant ecotourism potential due to its rich biodiversity, cultural and religious sites and opportunities for activities like jungle walks, birdwatching and camping. Establishment of mini zoo, Maithili museum, homestays and cultural programs can add more opportunities for the development of ecotourism in the area. While local communities largely support ecotourism and recognize its conservation benefits, key challenges include political instability, inadequate tourism infrastructure, limited promotion, and the absence of a visitor information center. The study concludes that realizing Dhanushadham's ecotourism potential necessitates addressing these challenges through targeted interventions such as awareness campaigns, infrastructure development, and improved governance along with strategies to increase the length of stay for visitors. This study contributes to the limited body of knowledge on ecotourism in protected forests, particularly within the Madhesh Province of Nepal, offering valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders seeking to develop sustainable tourism strategies in similar contexts.

This paper aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of religious tourism theme in order to summarize the research's structure by different variables. Publications’ data were extracted from the Web of Science Collection (WoS), since 1992 till 2023. The literature analysis was carried out with the support of VOSviewer (version 1.6.18.) software as open tool for constructing and visualizing bibliometric networks. Trends of scientific publications, by institutions, authors, journal for three keywords: religious tourism, faith-based tourism, ecumenical tourism were identified. A complete WOSviewer analysis was performed only for “religious tourism”, based on 2,571 publications downloaded. For ecumenical terms only 19 articles were found out and 29 for faith-based tourism. Thus, the suitable concept found for studies about heritage, motivation, infrastructure, case studies etc. was covered by religious tourism. The main productions belonged to several authors specialized in religious destinations from Israel, India, Portugal, Italy, Asia or America, but few of them grouped together. They tend to network with other authors ranked lower than themselves, thus amplifying the body of research on the subject. These findings may be helpful to researchers, giving them both a brief assessment regarding religious tourism and directions needed to cover other topics in the field.

In Romania, the changes of the land fund occurring over the last decades due to land restitutions have led to some difficulties in the management of the marked forests and to excessive harvesting in all geographical areas, but especially in the Carpathian Mountains. Although these topics have been intensely publicized, the general reaction of the population and, implicitly, of the local communities, towards these signals has been week and isolated. Consequently, the study aims at examining the perception of local Carpathian communities, as actors involved in sustainable development, which are required to assume an active participation in the sustainable management (SFM) of the forests lying in the vicinity of residential areas. In order to accomplish this, an interview was applied in eight pilot areas from the Southern Carpathians. The results reveal that, regardless of education level, the respondents have a deep environmental knowledge about forest ecosystems, a perception in which the interest goes primarily to forest maintenance and only then to economic harvesting. The perception regarding the forests' condition, the activity of the administrators and the specific legislation is predominantly negative. In order to overcome the dysfunctions the members of local communities support legislation improvement, the increase of environmental awareness by education, being willing to get involved in a wide range of activities to enhance SFM. The study may be a useful tool for policy makers and for improving the activities by involving local population, which is the main target of SFM.

Seasonality is a specific problem of Romanian tourism, especially on the Black Sea seaside. Through a comprehensive approach, based on statistical data, we show the huge differences between the summer and the off-season offer, providing a starting point for future studies, both from official and field sources. The Krugman's Core-Periphery model clearly emphasizes that the development of a core neglects the periphery, and seasonality only accentuates its affectation until its complete abandonment, stagnation of development or regression. The impact of seasonality on the Romanian Black Sea seaside determines, to a certain extent, the development of egocentric poles, around which satellite-resorts are extremely dependent, their improvement requiring a research of all economic indicators involved. The development of the Northern Zone to the detriment of the Southern one has led to the emergence of extremely comprehensive results on the current situation, and the intense study of this area could reduce the socio-economic gap between them, being profitable for both private and public.