Publicações

Os vazios cartográficos, grandes áreas do território que não foram mapeadas oficialmente, podem ter seus dados geográficos conhecidos em detalhes por meio de mapeamentos colaborativos. O uso de programas que permitem a realização desse tipo de mapeamento, feito em rede por agentes públicos ou voluntários, ajuda a promover a participação popular e a inclusão social na gestão pública do território e em outras atividades que utilizam dados geográficos, como monitoramento de áreas de floresta, levantamento de recursos minerais e planejamento de ações de resgate.

A Política Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Civil, instituída pela Lei nº 12.608/2012, atribui aos municípios diversas competências em prevenção, mitigação, preparação, resposta e recuperação voltadas à proteção e defesa civil. A realidade dos municípios brasileiros, em especial aqueles de pequeno porte, tem sido a convivência com a escassez de recursos financeiros e humanos para o cumprimento de tais responsabilidades. Este artigo investiga o potencial dos consórcios públicos intermunicipais para a redução das vulnerabilidades, em especial institucional, técnica e política, no contexto de risco de desastres. Por meio de um estudo reflexivo, diversas experiências de consórcios públicos no Brasil foram investigadas, considerando as potencialidades e os desafios enfrentados em sua constituição e manutenção. A capacidade política, financeira e operacional dos consórcios pode viabilizar as atribuições de caráter mais especializado, a exemplo dos mapeamentos de áreas de risco de desastres e dos planos de contingência. Por outro lado, o consórcio por si só não é capaz de resolver todas as dificuldades enfrentadas pelos municípios, sendo necessário ultrapassar entraves políticopartidários e desinteresse da gestão local. Vencidos estes desafios, a cooperação mostra-se com grande potencial para fortalecer as capacidades municipais voltadas para a redução do risco de desastres.

Este estudo tem como objetivo maior compreender a associativismo como ferramenta de melhoria das condições de vida dos habitantes do Semiárido brasileiro a partir do estudo realizado com a Associação dos Camponeses e Camponesas dos Sítios Ponta II e Barra II, localizada no município de Apodi, no estado do Rio Grande do Norte. A metodologia do trabalho pautou-se em pesquisa bibliográfica e aplicação de um questionário com 21 associados. O Estatuto Social da associação foi analisado para maior aprofundamento no conhecimento sobre a entidade e os sócios também foram estudados através da aplicação de um questionário com perguntas objetivas e subjetivas. A partir dos resultados, foi possível compreender que muitos sócios ingressaram na associação com o objetivo de buscar benefícios para si ou para a comunidade, e que eles estão sempre participando das reuniões da associação, mas quando as reuniões são em âmbito maior, como o fórum das associações que acontece em Apodi, a participação dos membros é mínima, dificultado, muitas vezes, o recebimento de mais projetos e benefícios.

O emprego de abordagens baseadas em Gestão Adaptativa representa uma oportunidade para o aperfeiçoamento da Etapa de Acompanhamento da Avaliação de Impacto, considerando as afinidades conceituais que existem entre suas estruturas. Na prática, há casos que demonstram o aumento da capacidade adaptativa baseado em aprendizado experiencial, o que requer arranjos de governança que sejam capazes de garantir o efetivo envolvimento das diversas partes da sociedade no próprio processo de tomada de decisão. De toda forma, a Gestão Adaptativa é uma abordagem promissora, o que não pode significar o desrespeito aos princípios da precaução e da prevenção que fundamentam os processos de Avaliação de Impacto Ambiental, servindo de mero paliativo para situações cujos impactos ambientais poderiam ter sido previstos e evitados.

Este estudo tem por objetivo interpretar o território paulista da Bacia Hidrográfica do Rio Paraíba do Sul a partir dos índices de saneamento básico e qualidade das águas dos corpos hídricos . Para isso, se utiliza dos critérios de luminosidades definidos por Santos e Silveira (2005) e dados sobre o esgotamento sanitário do SNIS e do IBGE, e os explica à luz dos contrastes demográficos e sanitários existentes no território. Esses contrastes ficam mais evidentes quando apresentados os índices de atendimento em saneamento básico e os volumes de esgotamento sanitário, tratados ou não, que atingem os corpos hídricos da Bacia Hidrográfica. Aspectos estes que são indicativos de forte desalinhamento entre as políticas públicas adotadas e a real necessidade de investimento na infraestrutura sanitária, considerando as peculiaridades em cada localidade. Por fim, traça um paralelo entre o cumprimento da Agenda 2030, neste caso representada pela ODS 6, e os municípios que se encontram mais vulneráveis em relação à qualidade da água de seus corpos hídricos, propondo um realinhamento nos investimentos àquelas localidades que estão aquém das metas estabelecidas pela Agenda.

Tall trees are key drivers of ecosystem processes in tropical forest, but the controls on the distribution of the very tallest trees remain poorly understood. The recent discovery of grove of giant trees over 80 meters tall in the Amazon forest requires a reevaluation of current thinking. We used high-resolution airborne laser surveys to measure canopy height across 282,750 ha of old-growth and second-growth forests randomly sampling the entire Brazilian Amazon. We investigated how resources and disturbances shape the maximum height distribution across the Brazilian Amazon through the relations between the occurrence of giant trees and environmental factors. Common drivers of height development are fundamentally different from those influencing the occurrence of giant trees. We found that changes in wind and light availability drive giant tree distribution as much as precipitation and temperature, together shaping the forest structure of the Brazilian Amazon. The location of giant trees should be carefully considered by policymakers when identifying important hot spots for the conservation of biodiversity in the Amazon.

The importance of studying the atmospheric pollution due to its effects on human health and other ecosystems, the inexistence of national production of equipment for air sample collection, and the high cost of the imported equipment (especially in developing countries) led the authors of the present work to construct a low-cost Gent type sampler. The construction of the sampler was carried out by combining low-cost materials with good mechanical strength (such as nylon 6.0), hydraulic piping PVC, and the use of a 3D printer. The innovation of the present work is the employment of a 3D printer using ABS polymer to create the grids that cannot be machined. In addition to the sampler, the system is composed of a vacuum pump, a gas meter, and a rotameter. The total cost of the sampling system amounted at about 1200 USD, and the cost of the manufactured Gent type sampler did not reach 100 USD. The results obtained while using this set for sampling atmospheric aerosol for a period of 11 months were compared with the mass concentration of PM10 obtained from the official environmental company, CETESB of Sao Paulo State, Brazil, showing good correlation with those from CETESB – which confirmed its effectiveness and suitability for use. The low cost, easy operation, and versatility of the built Gent type sampler enable its use for scientific and academic purposes. The equipment can be useful in environmental monitoring networks, in low-income regions, and as an instrument for environmental education used in universities.

Climate change induced by global warming will produce more frequent heatwaves and intensify urban heat islands, thereby increasing heating related risks. Given this scenario, it is important to mitigate heat on urban ecosystems to promote their resilience. This study aims to develop a method to identify heat vulnerable urban areas by considering the land surface temperature (LST) distribution and landscape patterns. Methods included the creation of a cellular space to represent a given urban environment and integrate multidisciplinary databases; the use of Landsat-8 satellite images to estimate fraction vegetation cover, normalized difference moisture indices emissivity, and albedo; and exploratory spatial analyses using Moran’s global and local indices to identify landscape patterns associated with Local Climate Zones (LCZ). Analyses revealed that the estimated variables are suitable for explaining LST, which is autocorrelated in space, despite seasonal variations. The methods made it possible to identify heat vulnerable areas, which should be considered when developing adaptation policies, and that heating is associated with areas composed of both compact low rise (LCZ3) and large low rise buildings (LCZ8), whereas cooling is associated with dense trees (LCZA), and when vegetation is associated with both open high rise (LCZ4) and open low rise buildings (LCZ6).

Smoke aerosol plumes generated during the biomass burning season in Brazil suffer long-range transport, resulting in large aerosol optical depths over an extensive domain. As a consequence, downward surface solar irradiance, and in particular the direct component, can be significantly reduced. Accurate solar energy assessments considering the radiative contribution of biomass burning aerosols are required to support Brazils solar power sector. This work presents the 2nd generation of the radiative transfer model BRASIL-SR, developed to improve the aerosol representation and reduce the uncertainties in surface solar irradiance estimates in cloudless hazy conditions and clean conditions. Two numerical experiments allowed to assess the models skill using observational or regional MERRA-2 reanalysis AOD data in a region frequently affected by smoke. Four ground measurement sites provided data for the model output validation. Results for DNI obtained using δ-Eddington scaling and without scaling are compared, with the latter presenting the best skill in all sites and for both experiments. An increase in the relative error of DNI results obtained with δ-Eddington optical depth scaling as AOD increases is evidenced. For DNI, MBD deviations ranged from −2.3 to −0.5%, RMSD between 2.3 and 4.7% and OVER between 0 and 5.3% when using in-situ AOD data. Overall, our results indicate a good skill of BRASIL-SR for the estimation of both GHI and DNI.

Identification of terrestrial carbon (C) sources and sinks is critical for understanding the Earth system as well as mitigating and adapting to climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions. Predicting whether a given location will act as a C source or sink using terrestrial ecosystem models (TEMs) is challenging due to net flux being the difference between far larger, spatially and temporally variable fluxes with large uncertainties. Uncertainty in projections of future dynamics, critical for policy evaluation, has been determined using multi-TEM intercomparisons, for various emissions scenarios. This approach quantifies structural and forcing errors. However, the role of parameter error within models has not been determined. TEMs typically have defined parameters for specific plant functional types generated from the literature. To ascertain the importance of parameter error in forecasts, we present a Bayesian analysis that uses data on historical and current C cycling for Brazil to parameterise five TEMs of varied complexity with a retrieval of model error covariance at 1 degrees spatial resolution. After evaluation against data from 2001-2017, the parameterised models are simulated to 2100 under four climate change scenarios spanning the likely range of climate projections. Using multiple models, each with per pixel parameter ensembles, we partition forecast uncertainties. Parameter uncertainty dominates across most of Brazil when simulating future stock changes in biomass C and dead organic matter (DOM). Uncertainty of simulated biomass change is most strongly correlated with net primary productivity allocation to wood (NPPwood) and mean residence time of wood (MRTwood). Uncertainty of simulated DOM change is most strongly correlated with MRTsoil and NPPwood. Due to the coupling between these variables and C stock dynamics being bi-directional, we argue that using repeat estimates of woody biomass will provide a valuable constraint needed to refine predictions of the future carbon cycle. Finally, evaluation of our multi-model analysis shows that wood litter contributes substantially to fire emissions, necessitating a greater understanding of wood litter C cycling than is typically considered in large-scale TEMs. 

 This study evaluated the use of hydrogel on the development of Rapanea ferruginea under water restriction through Vibrational Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR-UATR). Seedlings of approximately 30 cm height were transferred in pots with 3 L of soil. The group of seedlings was separated into 5 different triplicate treatments according to the amount of hydrogel, as follows: H1 (25%), H2 (20%), H3 (15%), H4 (10%) and S (control without hydrogel). The applied hydrogel was mixed homogeneously with the soil. All treatments were irrigated with 40 mL of water. FTIR spectra were obtained from fresh leaves collected during 13 months of monitoring. The correlation of the hydroxyl (water) band with the main biomolecules between treatments with the control was evaluated using the Mann-Whitney test (p<0.05). The biomolecule bands were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA). The results indicate a significant correlation of the water band with the lipid, hemicellulose, cell wall and starch components in the species. The use of hydrogel resulted in a significant difference in the water absorption band in relation to the control group through the Mann-Whitney test and in biomolecules as the HCA and PCA analysis suggested. The best development was observed in groups H4 (10%), H2 (20%) and H3 (15%). The use of hydrogel positively influences the biomolecular development of the Rapanea ferruginea and monitoring is viable by FTIR

The urban population increase in the world, the economic expansion, and the rise in living standards associated with societys habits and lifestyles accelerated the municipal solid waste (MSW) generation in undeveloped countries, such as in Brazil, in which the generation increased by 25% from 2012 to 2017. In the same period, the São Paulo state, the richest Brazilian state, increased its municipal solid waste generation by 51%. All this MSW needed to be collected and transported, and this process has a high economic and environmental cost. Therefore, this study aims to identify, using spatial analysis, the routes used by MSW trucks to estimate the distances traveled to dispose of the MSW on a regional scale considering all municipalities in the São Paulo state. The findings showed that the landfill numbers decrease, mainly individual ones, which receive MSW only from the city where it is located. Otherwise, the consortium landfills number is increasing, as well as the number of municipalities that share the same disposal site. Consequently, the distances to transport MSW from urban areas to final disposal sites increased by about 55% from 2012 to 2017, reaching 613 million kilometers during this period. This total distance is sufficient to make more than 12,806 laps on Earth and contribute to high fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emission.