Publicações

A Economia Verde (EV) é um assunto emergente no contexto das discussões científicas e políticas mundiais, tendo como principal desafio tornar as atividades econômicas em atividades sustentáveis. A cadeia produtiva da cana-de-açúcar envolve questões sociais, econômicas e ambientais controversas. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a adequação aos princípios da EV da cultura em questão na microrregião de Ribeirão Preto/SP. Para tanto, foi desenvolvido o Índice de Adaptabilidade à Economia Verde (IAEV), o qual é composto por Índices Parciais (Impacto Econômico IPIE; Impacto Social IPIS; e Impacto Ambiental IPIA). A construção de tais índices baseou-se em variáveis disponibilizadas por órgãos como IBGE, SUS, SEADE e CANASAT/ INPE. De forma geral, a microrregião apresentou uma melhoria no IAEV em uma década (2000 e 2010). Além disso, constatou-se que os índices parciais social e ambiental apresentaram os menores valores, sendo considerados como aspectos prioritários para futuros investimentos. ABSTRACT: The Green Economy (GE) is an emerging issue in the context of scientific and political wide discussions. Its main challenge is to turn economic activities into sustainable activities. The production chain of cane sugar involves social, economic and environmental aspects controversial. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the adjustment with the principles of EV of the culture in question in the microregion of Ribeirão Preto (SP). Therefore, we developed the Index Adaptability to the Green Economy (IAGE), which consists of Partial Indexes (Economic Impact PIEI; Social Impact PISI, and Environmental Impact PIEI). The construction of such indexes was based on variables provided by agencies such as IBGE, SUS, SEADE and CANASAT/INPE. In general terms, the microrregion in study presented an improvement in IAGE in a decade (2000 and 2010). We also demonstrate that the social and environmental partial indexes were the lowest values; priority areas for future investments.

Our review focuses on the projections of climate change in the Brazilian semiarid region, the Caatinga, based on recent publications about global climate change and biology. We found several vulnerable points in the initial estimates, the main one being that the data were collected and analyzed without a multidisciplinary knowledge. This review discusses several studies that show the current knowledge in many semiarid regions around the world. Some of these studies argue for the increase in vegetation greenness responses even under severe and prolonged drought, based on the high resilience the Caatinga native species show under severe drought conditions over the years. Additionally, we include in this review recent data produced by our group on key ecophysiological variables under drought conditions. We also show successful examples of deforested areas recovery in the semiarid region of the Central America. It is critical that the recovery of semiarid areas is coupled with the implementation of socio-environmental policies, engaging the local population and providing subsidies for life wealth improvement. These are key aspects for a long-term recovery and conservation of the Brazilian dry tropical forest.

According to the State Program of Action to Combat Desertification and Mitigate the Effects of Drought (PAE/CE), the State of Ceara-Brazil has three centers configured with Areas Susceptible to Desertification which are the Hinterlands of Inhamuns, the Hinterlands Irauçuba and Center North and the Hinterlands of Medium Jaguaribe, encompassing twelve municipalities and covering a total area of 26,432,65km2. It is known that the problem of desertification in State of Ceara acquired more notoriety from the Arid Project which subsidized actions such as the elaboration of the National Program of Action to Combat Desertification and Mitigate the Effects of Drought. Since then, although with a smaller intensity than expected, noted that strategies to combat the phenomenon is being implemented in the State. In this context, the objective of this study is to conduct a systematization of the major Plans, Policies and Programs (PPP) in the State of Ceara in the period from 2004 to 2012. To this end, documentary and bibliographic searches were carried out. The systematization was made taking as parameters: objective of intervention, implementation year, managing agency, participation of society, geographical area, obstacles faced and benefits from the results obtained. It was found that the low participation, the supervision of PPP and reduced integration between policies are factors that limit the implementation and the control of actions.

As interest grows in the contribution of ecosystem services to poverty alleviation, we present a new conceptual framework, synthesizing insights from existing frameworks in social-ecological systems science and international development. People have differentiated abilities to benefit from ecosystem services, and the framework places emphasis on access to services, which may constrain the poorest more than aggregate availability. Distinctions are also made between categories of ecosystem service in their contribution to wellbeing, provisioning services and cash being comparatively easy to control. The framework gives analytical space for understanding the contribution of payments for ecosystem services to wellbeing, as distinct from direct ecosystem services. It also highlights the consumption of ecosystem services by external actors, through land appropriation or agricultural commodities. Important conceptual distinctions are made between poverty reduction and prevention, and between human response options of adaptation and mitigation in response to environmental change. The framework has applications as a thinking tool, laying out important relationships such that an analyst could identify and understand these in a particular situation. Most immediately, this has research applications, as a basis for multidisciplinary, policy-relevant research, but there are also applications to support practitioners in pursuing joint policy objectives of environmental sustainability and poverty alleviation.

The carbon and water cycles for a southwestern Amazonian forest site were investigated using the longest time series of fluxes of CO2 and water vapor ever reported for this site. The period from 2004 to 2010 included two severe droughts (2005 and 2010) and a flooding year (2009). The effects of such climate extremes were detected in annual sums of fluxes as well as in other components of the carbon and water cycles, such as gross primary production and water use efficiency. Gap-filling and flux-partitioning were applied in order to fill gaps due to missing data, and errors analysis made it possible to infer the uncertainty on the carbon balance. Overall, the site was found to have a net carbon uptake of approximate to 5 t C ha(-1) year(-1), but the effects of the drought of 2005 were still noticed in 2006, when the climate disturbance caused the site to become a net source of carbon to the atmosphere. Different regions of the Amazon forest might respond differently to climate extremes due to differences in dry season length, annual precipitation, species compositions, albedo and soil type. Longer time series of fluxes measured over several locations are required to better characterize the effects of climate anomalies on the carbon and water balances for the whole Amazon region. Such valuable datasets can also be used to calibrate biogeochemical models and infer on future scenarios of the Amazon forest carbon balance under the influence of climate change.

This paper introduces a lightning forecasting method called Potential Lightning Region (PLR), which is the probability of the occurrence of lightning over a region of interest. The PLR was calculated using a combination of meteorological variables obtained from high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model simulations during the summer season in southeastern Brazil. The model parameters used in the PLR definition were: surface-based Convective Available Potential Energy (SBCAPE), Lifted Index (LI), K-Index (KI), average vertical velocity between 850 and 700 hPa (w), and integrated ice-mixing ratio from 700 to 500 hPa (QICE). Short-range runs of twelve non-severe thunderstorm cases were performed with the WRF model, using different convective and microphysical schemes. Through statistical evaluations, the WRF cloud parameterizations that best described the convective thunderstorms with lightning in southeastern Brazil were the combination of Grell-Devenyi and Thompson schemes. Two calculation methods were proposed: the Linear PLR and Normalized PLR. The difference between them is basically how they deal with the influence of lightning flashes over the WRF domain’s grid points for the twelve thunderstorms analyzed. Three case studies were used to test both methods. A statistical evaluation lowering the spatial resolution of the WRF grid into larger areas was performed to study the behavior and accuracy of the PLR methods. The Normalized PLR presented the most suitable one, predicting flash occurrence appropriately.

The aim of this investigation is to analyze the phenomenology of positive and negative (stepped and dart) leaders observed in natural lightning from digital high-speed video recordings. For that intent we have used four different high-speed cameras operating at frame rates ranging from 1000 or 11,800 frames per second in addition to data from lightning locating systems (BrasilDat and NLDN). All the recordings were GPS time-stamped in order to avoid ambiguities in the analysis, allowing us to estimate the peak current of and the distance to each flash that was detected by one of the lightning locating systems. The data collection was done at different sites in south and southeastern of Brazil, southern Arizona and South Dakota, USA. A total of 62 negative stepped leaders, 76 negative dart leaders and 29 positive leaders were recorded and analyzed. From these data it was possible to calculate the two-dimensional speed of each observed leader, allowing us to obtain its statistical distribution and evaluate whether or not it is related to other characteristics of the associated flash. In the analyzed dataset, the speeds of positive leaders and negative dart leaders follow a lognormal distribution at the 0.05 level (according to the Shapiro-Wilk test). We have also analyzed how the two-dimensional leader speeds change as they approach ground through two different methodologies. The speed of positive leaders showed a clear tendency to increase while negative dart leaders tend to become slower as they approach ground. Negative stepped leaders, on the other hand, can either accelerate as they get closer to ground or present an irregular development (with no clear tendency) throughout their entire development. For all the three leader types no correlation has been found between the return stroke peak current and the average speed of the leader responsible for its initiation. We did find, however, that dart leaders preceded by longer interstroke intervals cannot present speeds of the order of 107 m s- 1. Finally, we have analyzed the impact of recoil activity during positive leaders over their average speed and the return stroke peak current. Even though the analysis considering the leader speed was not conclusive it was possible to show that there is no apparent minimum or maximum peak current value for return strokes preceded by leaders with or without recoil activity (considering the most common range of values in literature, 20-80 kA).

Agriculture, deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and local/regional climate change have been closely intertwined in Brazil. Recent studies show that this relationship has been changing since the mid 2000s, with the burgeoning intensification and commoditization of Brazilian agriculture. On one hand, this accrues considerable environmental dividends including a pronounced reduction in deforestation (which is becoming decoupled from agricultural production), resulting in a decrease of <40% in nationwide greenhouse gas emissions since 2005, and a potential cooling of the climate at the local scale. On the other hand, these changes in the land-use system further reinforce the long-established inequality in land ownership, contributing to rural-urban migration that ultimately fuels haphazard expansion of urban areas. We argue that strong enforcement of sector-oriented policies and solving long-standing land tenure problems, rather than simply waiting for market self-regulation, are key steps to buffer the detrimental effects of agricultural intensification at the forefront of a sustainable pathway for land use in Brazil.