Publicações

A discussion that has occurred in the scientific community is that despite the increase in the frequency of droughts, the semi-arid world may be increasing the density of vegetation due to fertilization by the increase in atmospheric CO2, a phenomenon called greening. Through this study, we sought to evaluate and discuss whether this greening would also be occurring in the Brazilian semiarid and what would be its contribution or counterpoint about droughts. Another topic covered wasWater Use Eciency (WUE), about its contribution tomitigating droughts.We chose eight study areas in which the native vegetation was preserved for periods of around 20 years or more. We used data from the Leaf Area Index (LAI), Gross Primary Productivity (GPP), precipitation, evaporation, transpiration, and soil moisture. We divided into two distinct periods to calculate the means of these variables. We applied the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) to identify the frequency of droughts for the period from 1961 to 2020. It was observed that between 2001 and 2020, there was an increase in the relative frequency of extreme and exceptional droughts around 19 and 11%, respectively. Our results showed evidence of greening for only two sites that were less impacted by droughts, and it seems that the CO2 fertilizer e􀀀ect could not compensate for the scarcity of water.

Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) models are important tools for environmental policy planning. LULCC models are frequently constrained to the generation of projections at a specific resolution. However, subsequent studies or models may require finer resolutions. In this work, a downscaling method for LULCC models is proposed that uses a mathematical programming approach to disaggregate the multiple layers of the land-use change projections while respecting a series of constraints. The method is calibrated and validated with MapBiomas data for the years 2000 and 2018 converted for the GLOBIOM-Brazil model, successfully predicting land-use at a finer resolution. Also, as proof of concept, the calibrated model is also applied for GLOBIOM-Brazil projections for 2050. This paper advances the state-of-the-art by proposing and testing a downscaling method using a mathematical programming approach with spatial effects, that operates on multi-layered land-use projections with a range of constraints while allowing flexibility on the number and type of the specific layers and constraints.

Este artigo propõe uma metodologia de análise das capacidades institucionais de enfrentamento das mudanças climáticas em âmbito municipal e metropolitano. A metodologia foi aplicada na Região Metropolitana de São Paulo (RMSP), utilizando os dados relativos a Meio Ambiente e Gestão de Riscos, da Pesquisa Nacional de Informações Municipais do IBGE (Munic), edições de 2013, 2017 e 2020. Os resultados indicam perda consistente das capacidades institucionais de enfrentamento das mudanças climáticas entre 2013 e 2020. Há uma diferença considerável no padrão dessa perda quando a análise incide separadamente sobre a capacidade institucional para lidar com os temas da gestão ambiental e da gestão de riscos de desastres. Palavras-chave: capacidade institucional; mudanças climáticas; meio ambiente; gestão de riscos; indicadores.

Energy is an essential factor that must not be overlooked in discussions concerning mitigating and confronting effects associated with human-induced climate change. This work delves into the Chilean and Brazilian energy transitions, scrutinizing just and sustainable aspects, primarily in the local context. The study highlights and compares the experiences of both nations’ on-grid energy communities. The methodological pathway comprises three phases: examining regulatory frameworks, assessing on-grid energy communities infrastructure in both countries and delving into emerging energy cooperatives. Our findings suggest that on-grid energy communities have the potential to foster a more widespread sustainable energy transition, especially when established as cooperative entities. However, there are no easy solutions to date, as justice and democracy are not guaranteed if stakeholders are not adequately engaged. Although there are fewer cooperative cases in Chile, all show a cross-cutting involvement of different members of society, while some Brazilian cases do not.

Synthesis science is an emergent research field for harmonizing different data, concepts, and theories to create new insights and endorse novel approaches. Here we provide a brief general overview of synthesis science, emphasize the geographically biased location of synthesis centers一particularly their paucity in the Global South一and highlight the pioneering role of the Synthesis Center on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (SinBiose, CNPq) concerning transdisciplinary aspirations in the Global South. Working with the ecosystem service dimension requires breaking discipline boundaries to approach society, stakeholders, and decision-makers, which SinBiose fosters and is rarely found elsewhere. This article features a Brazilian experience of synthesis science through the perception of SinBiose’s postdoctoral researchers, which have a central role in the workflow as the only professionals dedicated exclusively to the projects. As a conclusion, we present recommendations for improving the support for postdoctoral researchers and arguments for a continued funding of synthesis science in Brazil.

During 2020 and 2021 we performed a series of investigations about communication aspects related to the civil defense in Brazil, such as interviews, questionnaires, online roundtables and documental analysis. All federative levels (national, state and municipal) were included and we analyzed communication among them, from them to general public, and from them to other institutions. We also analyzed the way in which the communication happens (written/spoken/digital, formal/informal), and the outreach, impacts and challenges of each one. The main investigative analysis was the questionnaire, which as answered by more than 1000 municipal civil defense agencies. Some details were explored through individual interviews. As main results, we point the lack of integration and articulation between municipal, state, and national levels to improve the communication flow. Also, communities participation should be fostered to legitimate communication and strengthen the trust on the system.

The study of rainfall properties at various spatiotemporal scales is deeply important for understanding a large range of socio-environmental processes and variables (e.g., water resources, agriculture, socio-ecosystemic services, natural risk assessment). However, such studies on rainfall characteristics, especially at sub-hourly resolutions, are scarce in large areas of South America due to the lack of a high-resolution temporal database. The Brazilian National Centre for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN) has gradually implemented, starting in 2013, a sub-hourly monitoring network composed of approximately 3500 automated rain gauges distributed across Brazil, enabling access to new hydrological studies in this vast tropical country featuring a range of biomes. This study analysed the characteristics of rainfall events for the whole of Brazil on sub-daily and sub-hourly timescales, using 7 years of data (from 2014 to 2021) provided by CEMADEN. Rainfall events were defined by the minimum inter-event time (MIT) and the minimum depth (1 mm). Seven MITs (30, 60, 120, 180, 360, 720, and 1440 min) were considered to evaluate the behaviour of rainfall event characteristics and their relationships. The Gaussian mixture model method was applied to identify regions with similar rainfall patterns according to the MIT. Six groups with homogeneous characteristics were identified, evidencing the climatic diversity of Brazil. The results show that the MIT strongly influences precipitation properties (especially the dry time and the number of events). The highest number of events occurred in the North-east Coast region, which exceeded 200 events per year (MIT < 60 min), while the lowest number of events was observed in the Semiarid region, which reached only 38 events per year with an MIT of 1440 min. Moreover, the events with the highest rainfall intensities were found in the Central region. The results found in this study provide a better understanding of precipitation and its characteristics in Brazil, highlighting the climatological diversity of this country.

The creation of the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) in the mid-2000s provided a new data format for cities to organize and share digital information on their public transport systems. GTFS feeds store geolocated data on public transport networks, including information on routes, stops, timetables, and service levels. The GTFS standard is now widely adopted by thousands of transport authorities and a wide variety of software applications for different purposes, including trip planning, timetable creation and accessibility analysis. Yet, there is still a lack of tools to parse GTFS data when the objective is to analyze the complex spatial and temporal patterns of public transport systems. This paper presents {gtfs2gps}, a new general-purpose computational tool to easily process static GTFS data that allows one to analyze the spacetime trajectories of public transport vehicles at fine spatial and temporal resolutions. {gtfs2gps} is an open-source R package that employs parallel computing to convert GTFS feeds from relational text files into a trajectory data table, similar to GPS records, with the timestamps of vehicles in every trip. This paper explains the package functionalities and demonstrates how {gtfs2gps} can be used to articulate key concepts in time geography to explore and visualize the spatial and temporal patterns of public transport networks. We also present a case study looking at how {gtfs2gps} can be used to examine socioeconomic and spatialtemporal inequalities in access to public transport, providing key information to monitor cities progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. The paper is accompanied by a computational notebook in R Markdown to support reproducibility of the results in this paper and to replicate the analysis for other contexts where GTFS data are available. Given the widespread use of GTFS, {gtfs2gps} opens new possibilities for researchers to examine the time geography of public transport systems in urban areas across the globe.

The Amazon Forest, the largest contiguous tropical forest in the world, stores a significant fraction of the carbon on land. Changes in climate and land use affect total carbon stocks, making it critical to continuously update and revise the best estimates for the region, particularly considering changes in forest dynamics. Forest inventory data cover only a tiny fraction of the Amazon region, and the coverage is not sufficient to ensure reliable data interpolation and validation. This paper presents a new forest above-ground biomass map for the Brazilian Amazon and the associated uncertainty both with a resolution of 250 meters and baseline for the satellite dataset the year of 2016 (i.e., the year of the satellite observation). A significant increase in data availability from forest inventories and remote sensing has enabled progress towards high-resolution biomass estimates. This work uses the largest airborne LiDAR database ever collected in the Amazon, mapping 360,000 km2 through transects distributed in all vegetation categories in the region. The map uses airborne laser scanning (ALS) data calibrated by field forest inventories that are extrapolated to the region using a machine learning approach with inputs from Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR), vegetation indices obtained from the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite, and precipitation information from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). A total of 174 field inventories geolocated using a Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) were used to validate the biomass estimations. The experimental design allowed for a comprehensive representation of several vegetation types, producing an above-ground biomass map varying from a maximum value of 518 Mg ha-1, a mean of 174 Mg ha-1, and a standard deviation of 102 Mg ha-1. This unique dataset enabled a better representation of the regional distribution of the forest biomass and structure, providing further studies and critical information for decision-making concerning forest conservation, planning, carbon emissions estimate, and mechanisms for supporting carbon emissions reductions.

Studies of global carbon balance estimates are still incipient in the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere, mainly in coastal areas and continental shelf. Even in Brazil, despite its continental proportion coastline, there is still a great inconsistency in studies on the marine carbonate system and CO2 fluxes at the air-sea interface. This article presents a review of studies on CO2 fluxes on the coast of Brazil, published between the years 2000 and 2022, aiming to map the distribution of CO2 fluxes on the Brazilian continental shelf, to understand its role as a source or sink of CO2. In general, large-scale studies show that the Brazilian shelf exhibits a latitudinal variation of air-sea CO2 fluxes, behaving mainly as a source in the north, where there is no influence of the Amazon River plume, and as a sink in the south portion. We also identified there is a strong influence on the occurrence of mesoscale and synoptic oceanographic and meteorological events, and the presence of different ecosystems, which can change the behavior of CO2 fluxes locally. However, there are still many data gaps along the continental shelf, as well as in different seasons for the entire coast.

In hydrological modelling, it is important to consider the uncertainties related to a models structures and parameters when different hydrological models are used to represent a system. Therefore, an adequate analysis of daily discharge forecasts that takes into account the performance of hydrological models can assist in identifying the best extreme discharge forecasts. In this context, this study aims to evaluate the performance of three hydrological modelsLavras Simulation of Hydrology (LASH), Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC), and Distributed Hydrological Model (MHD-INPE) in the Verde River basin. The results demonstrate that LASH and MHD can accurately simulate discharges, thereby establishing them as crucial tools for managing water resources in the study regions basins. Moreover, these findings could serve as a cornerstone for future studies focusing on food and water security, particularly when examining their connection to climate change scenarios.

Along with the accumulation of atmospheric greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, the loss of primary forests and other natural ecosystems is a major disruption of the Earth’s system and is causing global concern. Quantifying planetary warming from carbon emissions, global climate models highlight natural forests’ high carbon storage potential supporting conservation policies. However, some model outcomes effectively deprioritize conservation of boreal and temperate forests by suggesting that increased albedo upon deforestation could cool the planet. A potential conflict of global cooling vs. regional forest conservation could harm environmental policies. Here we present theoretical and observational evidence to demonstrate that, compared to the carbon-related warming, modeling skills for assessing climatic impacts of deforestation is low. We argue that estimates for deforestation-induced global cooling result from the models’ limited capacity to account for the global effect of cooling from evapotranspiration of intact forests. Specifically, transpiration of trees can change the greenhouse effect via small modifications of the vertical temperature profile. However, due to their convective parameterization (which postulates a certain critical temperature profile), global climate models do not properly capture this effect. This may lead to an underestimation of warming from the loss of forest evapotranspiration in both high and low latitudes. As a result, conclusions about deforestation-induced global cooling are not robust and could result in action that immediately worsened global warming. To avoid deepening the environmental crisis, these conclusions should not inform policies of vegetation cover management, especially as studies from multiple fields are accumulating that better quantify the stabilizing impact of natural ecosystems evolved to maintain environmental homeostasis. Given the critical state and our limited understanding of both climate and ecosystems, an optimal policy with immediate benefits would be a global moratorium on the exploitation of all natural forests.