LIMNOLOGY, THE SCIENCE OF LAKES?

Petre GÂŞTESCU
Hyperion University of Bucharest, Department of Geography Bucharest, Romania gastescu_petre@yahoo.com

Abstract

The increasingly closer inter-relationships and inter-actions among the scientific disciplines are the main characteristic of current knowledge and development of natural and societal phenomena. And as important keep piling up, numerous new branches of science are emerging. Limnology, though no longer a young science since it was founded 100 years ago, falls in line with these trends. In the beginning, when lakes were the object of study of this discipline, research focused on morphographic and morphogenetic aspects. Therefore limnology had an obvious geographical character. In time, as the stress was being laid on the volume of water in the lake, on the water balance, on physico-chemical and biocoenotic particularities, also hydrological and biological aspects come into the spotlight. With the upsurge of the biological research of lakes ever more biologist would become attracted to this domain, Limnology become synonymous with the hydrobiology of fresh continental waters. It is not a general view, but it is common among biology specialists

Keywords: limnology, lakes, science