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This paper proposes a dual-feedback process that links watershed plan actions with raw water charges. A dedicated decision support model is created to implement this process and allow long-term financial sustainability analysis. The model offers real-time analysis of various watershed actions using customizable prioritization criteria integrated with different water pricing configurations, including user-polluter pays and beneficiary-pays principles, as well as other funding sources. Application to the Piracicaba–Capiravi–Jundiaí Basins in Brazil shows how important water management and water quality improving actions can be funded through water charges and how finance gaps can be resolved through a shared Vision Modelling approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Brazil, there are no unified and effective environmental monitoring models for bodies of water. Thus, several methodologies are used that result in information that is often difficult to compare, especially for stakeholders involved in regional water management. Studies in some countries such as Australia, Chile, the USA, and Sweden use the monitoring model implemented in Canada that was developed in the early 1990s. This model was designed to evaluate whether the current environmental regulations are sufficiently protective for pulp and paper effluents and for metal mining effluents. In this study, the Canadian Environmental Effects Monitoring methodologies were applied to three different Brazilian river basins, with the goal of constructing a framework for monitoring environmental effects. Pilot studies were carried out in the estuarine regions of the Benevente, Jucu, and Santa Maria da Vitória river basins, which are important rivers in the state of Espírito Santo. Evaluations included fish health, bioaccumulation studies, benthic invertebrate survey, and physical-chemical analyses of water and sediment. The quality of the environments was evaluated by means of seasonal samplings and comparisons between discharge, upstream, and downstream areas. This study made it possible to identify appropriate fish species to be used in environmental effects monitoring and the environmental quality of the rivers themselves as well as knowledge and policy gaps to implement such monitoring programs in Brazil. The study raises questions about the adequacy of Brazilian environmental legislation concerning tidal rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-impact development practices (LIDs) have been used to reduce the impacts of flash floods in Brazil. However, there is a lack of investigations on their construction costs concerning the effects on the mitigation of flash floods. This paper addresses the construction costs and the runoff reduction by using seven scenarios of LIDs for a 32-km2 basin in the Midwest Brazil region. The LIDs considered were permeable pavement (PP), rainwater harvesting (RWH), and infiltration trenches (IT). The first three LID scenarios considered PP, RWH, and IT techniques, respectively, and the other four used different combinations of the three LIDs. Scenario 3 showed a decrease of 15% in the runoff, achieved at a lower cost using only IT. This result corresponds to a 2.6% runoff reduction per $1 million spent. These analyses may help in the identification of the balance between benefit and cost by local stakeholders for the use of LIDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 21st century, participation is a key factor for ensure effectiveness of safeguarding culturally significant buildings. Integration of local communities in the process of architectural conservation is seen as complex task, but also an excellent strategy to avoid top-bottom processes – "made by experts" – that tend to fail more often. Recording heritage buildings often need some level of expertise but also tend to support biases, in which the "expert" operator might reproduce his perception away from the values acknowledged by the different communities that live and support the heritage itself. This paper presents a prototype of a digital interface designed to record the values' perception of derelict buildings of Laranjeiras' heritage site, an 18th century urban settlement classified since 1996 and valued as a Brazilian national heritage by its architecture and historical significance in the Cotinguiba river basin in the State of Sergipe. The project used as a case study the ancient "Cinema Iris", a popular building in the main street ("calçadão"). The methodology adopted the following procedures: 1) Survey; 2) Pre-selection of material attributes; 3) Integration; 4) Data collection; 5) Evaluation. As a primary product, yet to be perfected, the creation and application of the digital interface gave attention to the need for an integrated survey database of Laranjeiras' ruins as perceived by the local community. Turning them into a collection of balanced values, the interface proved to be a positive tool to support the development of further conservation actions (design, management, and monitoring) in the heritage site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agricola e Ambiental - Agriambi is the property of Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agricola e Ambiental and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The increase in the number of environmental disasters in recent years has prompted a reorientation of research and programs. While significant studies have primarily focused on the physical aspects of these disasters, it is important to recognize that the vulnerability of populations is not solely dependent on the proximity of the threat source or the physical nature of the disaster. Social factors also play a crucial role in determining vulnerability. To enhance natural disaster management, it is vital to understand how social disparities influence the vulnerability of populations and develop strategies tailored to specific characteristics. This study proposes a set of 16 theoretically significant variables to measure and map vulnerability in Brazil. They were grouped into three indicators, social, economic, and infrastructure aspects of the population, obtained from the Brazilian census database. The Córrego do Feijão tailings dam, in Brumadinho, and the Casa de Pedra tailings dam, in Congonhas, were taken as case studies. The vulnerability of 48 municipalities and 3732 census sectors from the Paraopeba River Basin was explored from two different perspectives: Where the disaster has already happened, and where it could happen. The index and indicators used were developed in an open-source software and the maps in a geographic information system. The results show considerable variability. The most vulnerable municipalities are in the lower part of the basin while the high part of the basin vulnerable. This paper presents methodological and empirical contributions to understanding the social dimensions of vulnerability and their implications for the preparation, response, and recovery of affected communities in the face of environmental disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to evaluate recharge methods and the relationship between precipitation pattern and variation of groundwater levels of the Serra Geral Aquifer System in the region of Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul. The study was carried out in an experimental basin that contains 4 deep wells inserted in the fractured aquifer, monitored from October 2020 to May 2022, and 2 piezometers installed in the phreatic aquifer, monitored from October 2021 to July 2022. As a result, it was found that the response of the fractured aquifer to precipitation events is on average 27 days. Also, there is a greater response of the aquifer to precipitation events with a volume greater than or equal to 50 mm/day. Recharge estimates through the water balance method represented about 24% and 18% of the total precipitation for the years 2020 and 2021, respectively. Whilst with the Water Table Fluctuation method, the estimated recharge of the fractured aquifer ranged from 3.6 to 6.8% of the total precipitation. In contrast, for the granular aquifer, recharge values ranged from 19.4 to 35.6% of the total precipitation. These results demonstrate that the recharge of the fractured aquifer is lower, which should be taken into account in recharge studies and reserve estimates. Therefore, when using recharge methods that do not take into account this difference between fractured and phreatic aquifers, it is possible that recharge estimates are overestimated and, consequently, will not reflect the reality of fractured aquifer recharge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study describes three new species of monogeneans parasitizing the gills of anostomid fishes from the Upper Paraná River basin, southeastern Brazil: Jainus beccus n. sp. and Jainus radixelongatus n. sp. on Leporinus friderici, Leporinus octofasciatus, Leporinus striatus, and Megaleporinus elongatus; and Jainus ornatus n. sp. on L. friderici. The new species differ from other congeners by the morphology of the accessory piece. There is a semicircular distal portion resembling a "bird's beak" in Jainus beccus n. sp. It composed of two subunits—one ventral and more sclerotized, sickle-shaped, and another dorsal with three projections—in Jainus radixelongatus n. sp. There are two elongated and sclerotized subunits, both of which have a sickle-shaped distal portion, in Jainus ornatus n. sp. Supplementary observations not reported in the original descriptions of the type-species Jainus piava Karling, Bellay, Takemoto & Pavanelli, 2011 are proposed, as follows: the presence of a thin and delicate ventral bar, which can vary greatly in shape; an accessory piece not articulated with the MCO's base. This paper provides the first phylogenetic study based on LSU rDNA and COI mtDNA gene sequences for Jainus, improving and clarifying the understanding of host–parasite relationships in neotropical characiforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment of seasonal streamflow forecasting is essential for appropriate water resource management. A suitable seasonal forecasting system requires the evaluation of both numerical weather prediction (NWP) and hydrological models to represent the atmospheric and hydrological processes and conditions in a specific region. In this paper, we evaluated the ECMWF-SEAS5 precipitation product with four hydrological models to represent seasonal streamflow forecasts performed at hydropower plants in the Legal Amazon region. The adopted models included GR4J, HYMOD, HBV, and SMAP, which were calibrated on a daily scale for the period from 2014 to 2019 and validated for the period from 2005 to 2013. The seasonal streamflow forecasts were obtained for the period from 2017 to 2019 by considering a daily scale streamflow simulation comprising an ensemble with 51 members of forecasts, starting on the first day of every month up to 7 months ahead. For each forecast, the corresponding monthly streamflow time series was estimated. A post-processing procedure based on the adjustment of an autoregressive model for the residuals was applied to correct the bias of seasonal streamflow forecasts. Hence, for the calibration and validation period, the results show that the HBV model provides better results to represent the hydrological conditions at each hydropower plant, presenting NSE and NSElog values greater than 0.8 and 0.9, respectively, during the calibration stage. However, the SMAP model achieves a better performance with NSE values of up to 0.5 for the raw forecasts. In addition, the bias correction displayed a significant improvement in the forecasts for all hydrological models, specifically for the representation of streamflow during dry periods, significantly reducing the variability of the residuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Interações is the property of Revista Interacoes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

When observing transboundary waters through the lens of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), it is essential to emphasize the principle of watershed unicity, which must overcome geopolitical interests while being supported by technical criteria. This paper used a multilevel and multiscale approach for integrated management of transboundary water resources in two South American transboundary river basins: the Javari River Basin (between Brazil and Peru) and the Quaraí River Basin (between Brazil and Uruguay). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provided spatialized data for South American watersheds. Our research focused on several broad issues concerning regional transboundary water management: (a) Because only Peru and Brazil use the Otto–Pfafstetter method, a uniform method within a regional agreement about methodological differences for delimiting hydrographic basins in each country is required; (b) It is necessary to organize accurate databases to avoid problems of mismatched borders by overlapping national databases or mismatches due to scale problems; (c) It is also necessary to establish a coordinating body capable of working with each country's representatives. In this case, building integrated and collaborative cartographic database becomes critical; (d) Because river meanders can change, historical data of a river's morphology is required. In this sense, this research provides guidelines to make water management in transboundary rivers feasible in South America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is the economic activity which uses water the most in Brazil, particularly in São Francisco River Basin, where water withdrawals for irrigation granted by water authorities amount to 22.3 billion m3 per year, a number which is close to 81% of the total withdrawal. On the other hand, bulk water in Brazil is underpriced. Water charges for agricultural users neither reflect the economic value of water nor induce a rational and efficient use of water resources, two key concepts of the Brazilian water law. Even so, it is common for irrigators to complain about the water prices charged for their use of bulk water. To throw some light on the real impact of charging water in the agriculture sector, this article evaluates the economic value of irrigation water in the São Francisco River basin through the shadow price approach, calculated by using the Residual Value Method. The analysis was performed for the top ten major São Francisco River basin crops in water use terms, namely corn, soybean, mango, beans, coffee bean, banana, cotton, sugar cane, papaya and rice. Results for the 2019 harvests show that except for sugar cane, all water shadow prices were positive, notably mango, beans and papaya. This paper also evaluated water shadow prices interannual variation from 2014 to 2019 for six crops. Except for sugarcane, the other crops have been profitable most of the time in the last 6 years. A wide fluctuation in the shadow price of water was observed over these years due to variations in sales prices and costs of production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to evaluate the hydrologic impacts of urban expansion in a peri-urban catchment that drains into a reservoir of the drinking water supply system of Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region in Brazil. Despite the metropolitan interest and efforts in protecting the catchment, a recent change in zoning ordinances allowed urban expansion in the area. To evaluate the potential hydrological impacts of this land use regulation change, scenarios of urban expansion were conceived and simulated in the model Dinamica EGO. The Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) was employed to assess potential hydrological impacts of land use change projections. Observed precipitation and water level data of the reservoir were used to calibrate and validate the hydrological model. Results confirm the impacts on several catchment hydrological processes following the progressive urban expansion in the area, particularly on volumes of infiltration, groundwater flow and runoff, increasing peak flows and flooding downstream the reservoir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominant processes in a watershed are those that most strongly control hydrologic function and response. Estimating dominant processes enables hydrologists to design physically realistic streamflow generation models, design management interventions, and understand how climate and landscape features control hydrologic function. A recent approach to estimating dominant processes is through their link to hydrologic signatures, which are metrics that characterize the streamflow timeseries. Previous authors have used results from experimental watersheds to link signature values to underlying processes, but these links have not been tested on large scales. This paper fills that gap by testing signatures in large sample data sets from the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, and Brazil, and in Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) watersheds. We found that most inter‐signature correlations are consistent with process interpretations, that is, signatures that are supposed to represent the same process are correlated, and most signature values are consistent with process knowledge in CZO watersheds. Some exceptions occurred, such as infiltration and saturation excess processes that were often misidentified by signatures. Signature distributions vary by country, emphasizing the importance of regional context in understanding signature‐process links and in classifying signature values as "high" or "low." Not all signatures were easily transferable from single, small watersheds to large sample studies, showing that visual or process‐based assessment of signatures is important before large‐scale use. We provide a summary table with information on the reliability of each signature for process identification. Overall, our results provide a reference for future studies that seek to use signatures to identify hydrological processes. Key Points: Large sample signature distributions enabled us to put signature values into context as high or low, but differ by countryMost signatures agreed with the processes they are supposed to represent, except for infiltration and saturation excess signaturesWe provide a table of signatures with recommendations on their reliability and use for process interpretation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the water crisis of 2015–2016, the construction of small earth-filled dams grew to supply irrigated crops of the north of Espírito Santo-ES, Brazil. This paper reports the hydrogeochemical study of eight reservoirs conducted between 10/2016 to 11/2017 to assess the water suitability for agricultural purposes and its risk to irrigation systems. The reservoirs of São Mateus (SM) are located in large drainage basins with many impoundments upstream. Nova Venecia's reservoirs (NV) have small and circular drainage areas with few, or any, upstream dams. The results are consistent with freshwater classification and Na-Cl composition to all reservoirs. Nevertheless, canonical discriminant analysis and Spearman's coefficients revealed distinct composition and patterns of correlations between municipalities. The mean permeability index of 53 and the low risk of sodicity and salinization (C1S1) demonstrate that these waters' use is harmless to the soil and crops. However, the phosphate contents make the new reservoirs susceptible to algae blooms. The same reservoirs also presented total solids and Fe levels above the tolerable limit for safety irrigation use, imposing a severe risk of clogging. The low replenishment of SM's reservoirs reflects the dispute over water resulting from the high number of impoundments in these drainage areas. The drought that preceded the study diminished the drainage basins' vegetation cover, favoring soil particles' runoff, elevating the TS and Fe levels, especially in the recently built reservoirs. Farmers must control soil erosion to avoid water quality compromise, to reduce the risk of failure and the irrigation system's maintenance cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses decadal climate phenomena and the phases of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and assesses the climate–water–energy nexus at the reservoir system of the São Francisco River Basin (SFRB), Brazil. This study brings a non-traditional approach focused on the link between climatic patterns and hydrological processes and their social-economic consequences, such as their effect on energy production. The methodology used data from the precipitation, natural streamflow, and AMO and PDO series. These variables were evaluated by wavelet transform analysis (WTA), flow duration curve (FDC), streamflow that is equalled or exceed ed 90% of the time (Q90), the reliability index (RI) for different demands and the hydropower generated. The results suggest that the WTA for the SFRB was more significant on the inter-annual scale, and the period with opposite phases of AMO(−) and PDO(+) showed the highest values of FDC, Q90, RI and hydropower generated simulated for the SFRB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at quantifying natural and artificial radionuclides, trace and major elements in sediments collected along the Tietê River basin. The results obtained for Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni and Zn, indicated that the region of "High Tietê" is highly polluted, followed by the region of "Middle Tietê" and the region of "Low Tietê" does not present evidence of contamination. The natural radionuclide concentrations were of the same order of magnitude of world average values and can be defined as basal levels of the region. Cesium-137 activity concentration ranged from 0.22 ± 0.08 Bq kg−1 to 0.96 ± 0.12 Bq kg−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In this paper, the concept of resilience is extended to the socio-economic domain in order to analyse the relationships between diversity in land use and ability to react to unexpected events. By considering the cocoa crisis of the 1990s, the impacts on economy, migration and land use diversification have been investigated for seven municipalities of the south-east of Bahia (Brazil). Correlation analyses between gross domestic product (GDP) and landscape indices have been performed to analyse the relationships between land use diversification and incidence of the crisis. Variations in the distribution of urban and rural population and in land use diversification have also been considered to analyse the reactions of the different municipalities. Results show that low land use diversification make the system low resilience. Being based on monoculture production, the seven administrative units considered in this paper turned out to be particularly vulnerable to the economic and environmental perturbation. The findings of this paper largely support policies promoting land use diversification as an instrument oriented to promote both economic productivity and environmental protection. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present the Catchments Attributes for Brazil (CABra), which is a large-sample dataset for Brazilian catchments that includes long-term data (30 years) for 735 catchments in eight main catchment attribute classes (climate, streamflow, groundwater, geology, soil, topography, land cover, and hydrologic disturbance). We have collected and synthesized data from multiple sources (ground stations, remote sensing, and gridded datasets). To prepare the dataset, we delineated all the catchments using the Multi-Error-Removed Improved-Terrain Digital Elevation Model (MERIT DEM) and the coordinates of the streamflow stations provided by the Brazilian Water Agency, where only the stations with 30 years (1980–2010) of data and less than 10 % of missing records were included. Catchment areas range from 9 to 4 800 000 km 2 , and the mean daily streamflow varies from 0.02 to 9 mm d -1. Several signatures and indices were calculated based on the climate and streamflow data. Additionally, our dataset includes boundary shapefiles, geographic coordinates, and drainage area for each catchment, aside from more than 100 attributes within the attribute classes. The collection and processing methods are discussed, along with the limitations for each of our multiple data sources. CABra intends to improve the hydrology-related data collection in Brazil and pave the way for a better understanding of different hydrologic drivers related to climate, landscape, and hydrology, which is particularly important in Brazil, having continental-scale river basins and widely heterogeneous landscape characteristics. In addition to benefitting catchment hydrology investigations, CABra will expand the exploration of novel hydrologic hypotheses and thereby advance our understanding of Brazilian catchments' behavior. The dataset is freely available at 10.5281/zenodo.4070146 and https://thecabradataset.shinyapps.io/CABra/ (last access: 7 June 2021). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socio-hydrology has recently garnered attention as a promising research paradigm among hydrologists. In this paper, we argue that viewing the socio-hydrological systems as a network of causal factors can assist in these efforts by revealing emergent properties of socio-hydrological systems. These factors, which are neither actors nor affiliations but symbolic representations of miscellaneous phenomena, represent the key variables affecting socio-hydrological system behaviour. Despite being crucial for understanding system dynamics, these factors are not captured by most equations of coupled human–water coevolutionary models. To demonstrate our method, we use qualitative case study research to analyse the Jaguaribe Basin in Ceará State-Brazil as a network of factors, i.e. mental conceptions, and representations of water resource management experts. We show that most results are unsurprising, exhibiting expected causal relationships. However, there was at least one unexpected result, which showed that the variable "conflict" was the single most sensitive variable to systemic evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semi-arid river basins often rely on reservoirs for water supply. Small reservoirs may impact on large-scale water availability both by enhancing availability in a distributed sense and by subtracting water for large downstream user communities, e.g. served by large reservoirs. Both of these impacts of small reservoirs are subject to climate change. Using a case-study on North-East Brazil, this paper shows that climate change impacts on water availability may be severe, and impacts on distributed water availability from small reservoirs may exceed impacts on centralised water availability from large reservoirs. Next, the paper shows that the effect of small reservoirs on water availability from large reservoirs may be significant, and increase both in relative and absolute sense under unfavourable climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of the water resources in Brazil: the country that holds 12% of the world's fresh water and has one of the most modern and sophisticated water resources management systems. This system—the National Water Resources Management System (SINGREH)—introduced new paradigms into water management practices in Brazil, such as decentralization, the use of economic tools, and public participation. In particular, this paper describes the roles of the National Water Agency, the institution created to implement such a complex system, taking into account the federative character of the country. In addition, the paper reviews the main challenges of river basin management in Brazil, considering the existence of rivers under different jurisdictions—Federal and State—within a single river basin. The paper then analyses the implementation and evolution of water use charges and the water agency at the Piracicaba, Capivari and Judiai river basins, as a study case. Those river basins are currently investing R$34 million in actions envisaged at the River Basin Water Plan. At the end, the paper concludes that global changes will bring new and important challenges to water resources management around the world in general, and in Brazil, in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a new catchment dataset for large-sample hydrological studies in Brazil. This dataset encompasses daily time series of observed streamflow from 3679 gauges, as well as meteorological forcing (precipitation, evapotranspiration, and temperature) for 897 selected catchments. It also includes 65 attributes covering a range of topographic, climatic, hydrologic, land cover, geologic, soil, and human intervention variables, as well as data quality indicators. This paper describes how the hydrometeorological time series and attributes were produced, their primary limitations, and their main spatial features. To facilitate comparisons with catchments from other countries, the data follow the same standards as the previous CAMELS (Catchment Attributes and MEteorology for Large-sample Studies) datasets for the United States, Chile, and Great Britain. CAMELS-BR (Brazil) complements the other CAMELS datasets by providing data for hundreds of catchments in the tropics and the Amazon rainforest. Importantly, precipitation and evapotranspiration uncertainties are assessed using several gridded products, and quantitative estimates of water consumption are provided to characterize human impacts on water resources. By extracting and combining data from these different data products and making CAMELS-BR publicly available, we aim to create new opportunities for hydrological research in Brazil and facilitate the inclusion of Brazilian basins in continental to global large-sample studies. We envision that this dataset will enable the community to gain new insights into the drivers of hydrological behavior, better characterize extreme hydroclimatic events, and explore the impacts of climate change and human activities on water resources in Brazil. The CAMELS-BR dataset is freely available at 10.5281/zenodo.3709337 (Chagas et al., 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an analysis of runoff behaviour of four urban catchments between the municipalities of Belo Horizonte and Contagem in Brazil, linked to their land use. Two years of online measurement of flow data, combined with spatial analysis, was linked through runoff modelisation with EPA SWMM. The coefficients of Nash obtained varying between 0.75 and 0.87 demonstrated an adequate modelling approach. A 1-year rain series was applied to evaluate the runoff behaviour of actual land cover and that of 2002. The peak flows normalised to watershed surfaces revealed as the most urbanised (85%) watershed Ressaca with 178 L/ha/s, three times more runoff intensive than the least urbanised (41%) Mergulhão with 67 L/ha/s. Statistical analysis of land cover data and modelling results on watershed and sub-watershed level showed main correlations between hydrological parameters such as peak flow, average event flow and restitution time, but also between land cover and runoff coefficient. This approach gave a linear relation between runoff and green surface, with a runoff coefficient of 0.86 for fully urbanised zone and 0.43 for full "green" cover. Prospective simulation with actual urbanisation rates varying from 4 to 34 ha/year suggested an increase between 6 and 18% of the flows and a possible end of urbanisation within the next two to three decades. These findings should contribute to a better understanding of hydrological impact of Belo Horizonte urbanisation and to the restauration of its Lake Pampulha. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazilian Cerrado biome is the largest and richest tropical savanna in the world. In order to understand the effects of climate changes on the hydrology of the Cerrado basins, this paper investigates the hydrological impacts of climate change throughout the 21st century under different emissions scenarios on the streamflow and on the droughts in the Sono, Manuel Alves da Natividade and Palma basins, located in the Brazilian Cerrado. For this purpose, the SWAT hydrological model driven by the downscaling of the HadGEM2‐ES and MIROC5 global climate models associated with RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios were used in three time slices (2011–2040, 2041–2070 and 2071–2099). The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Streamflow Index (SSFI) were used to characterize droughts. In general, the results showed that the duration, intensity and frequency of the meteorological and hydrological droughts are expected to increase during the future periods. However, the hydrological droughts are projected to be larger than the meteorological droughts. Reductions in the streamflow are indicated in all future time slices and under both RCPs, especially, during dry periods, which may cause negative impacts in the ecological functions of the Cerrado biome, risk for reduction of the recharge of aquifers and risk for the electric energy production in northern Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Solid waste accumulation in coastal environments has been a growing concern. In the coastal megacity of Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, plastic waste issues currently exist both at the ocean scale and river basin scale. The city is known as the 'Brazilian Venice' thanks to the Capibaribe River, which crosses many neighborhoods, running in a west-east direction into the Atlantic Ocean. This paper provides the initial basis to develop a Plastic Waste Management Program proposal for implementation in the city of Recife, given the lack of resolutions that have looked at plastic waste management through integrated water environment scales (from river basin to ocean). The methodology used included articulation and documental collection from four main public agencies from the state/city and stakeholders. The results showed its relevance for better plastic waste management in Recife, considering an integrated water environment on a river basin-to-ocean scale by using the recognized major connected water environments (Capibaribe river and Boa Viagem beach). Similar integrated program proposals could be made for other coastal areas, enabling not only the identification of fragilities but also the exchange of information regarding the theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) process variables, such as the flocculation parameters and the recycle water addition, as well as the pretreatment chemical variables (coagulation conditions), to determine the optimal values for the flotation of iron ore slimes found in a highly turbid water sample from the Gualaxo do Norte River, a tributary of the Doce River Basin in Minas Gerais, Brazil. This work was conducted using a flotatest batch laboratory-scale device to evaluate the effectiveness of DAF for cleaning the water polluted by the Samarco tailings dam leakage and determine the ability of DAF to reduce the water turbidity from 358 NTU to values below 100 NTU, aiming to comply with current legislation. The results showed that the four types of tested coagulants (PAC, ferric chloride, Tanfloc SG and Tanfloc SL) provided adequate conditions for coagulation, flocculation and flotation (in the range of 90–99.6% turbidity reduction). Although the process variables were optimized and low residual turbidity vales were achieved, results revealed that a portion of the flocs settled at the bottom of the flotatest columns, which indicated that the turbidity results represented removal caused by a combination of flotation and sedimentation processes simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical models based on machine learning methods have been used for landslide susceptibility mapping. The most accurate model is usually chosen to generate the final map. This paper demonstrates the importance of analyzing the spatial pattern of susceptibility maps, since models with similar performance can produce different output values. The relevance of terrain attributes and the sensitivity of models to input variables are also discussed. The applications of random forest (RF) and artificial neural network (ANN) models to the identification of landslide susceptible areas in the Fão River Basin, Southern Brazil, were evaluated and compared. The following have been included in the methodology: (1) the extraction of predictive attributes (e.g., slope, aspect, curvatures, valley depth) from a digital elevation model; (2) the organization of a landslide scar inventory; (3) the calibration and validation procedures of the models; (4) the analysis of model performance according to accuracy (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) and parsimony (Akaike Information Criterion); (5) the reclassification of maps into susceptibility categories. All model configurations resulted in an accuracy above 0.9, demonstrating the ability of both techniques in landslide susceptibility mapping. The RF model stood out in this respect, recording the highest accuracy index among all tested configurations (0.949). The ANN model was more parsimonious, obtaining an accuracy of 0.925 with a much smaller number of internal connections. Thus, even with both having high and equivalent accuracy indexes, the models can establish different relationships between the input and the output susceptibility indexes, resulting in various possible landslide occurrence scenarios. These differences, together with the difficulty in defining which model presents more coherent results, reinforce the possibility of extracting spatial statistics, considering multiple configurations of models that combine accuracy and parsimony, in landslide susceptibility mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Ambiente e Água is the property of Revista Ambiente e Agua and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The south of Brazil is a territory where different weather systems act, contributing to a non-homogeneity of the rainfall distribution in the region. This paper presents a characterization of rainfall occurring in the Itajaí River Basin, Santa Catarina, located in the south of Brazil. Through the use of daily rainfall data, we propose a review of the rainfall analysis using 10 climatic indexes created by the ETCCDI (Expert Team, ET, On Climate Change Detection and Indexes). The time period data from 1983 to 2014, originated from 31 meteorological stations, were analysed after an intense quality control and accurate historical research. Cluster technical analysis was performed to identify climatic areas within the basin. The results indicate that three climatic regions were identified with similar total annual precipitation but different seasonal distribution in the studied area. The analysis performed by the climatic indices confirms that an increase in total precipitation was recorded in almost all stations analysed and extreme precipitation was the main contributor to such additions. In this sense, the significant increase in total annual precipitation is mainly related to values above 95‰, that is, higher rainfall rates, as well as higher precipitation events above 10 and 20 mm/day. The present article presented alarming results and the possibility of future studies and research on the effects of variability, climate change and assessment of the vulnerability of the Itajaí River Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sinos River watershed is one of the most polluted water basins in Brazil with great efforts for its recovery through integral management. PESTEL is an analysis for the study of the external variables with influence in the efficiency of the organization or project. This paper presents a model to address problems encountered in the measurement and evaluation process of PESTEL analysis taking into account interdependencies among sub-factors and modeling uncertainty and indeterminacy in Sinos river basin. A Neutrosophic Cognitive Maps was used for modeling the integrated structure of PESTEL sub-factors. A quantitative analysis was developed based on static analysis and neutrosophic numbers. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposal in the Sinos river external factor analysis a case study is developed. Interdependencies among subfactors were includes and uncertainty and indeterminacy were modeled in a practical way. Sub-factor was ranked and reduced, with Ecological, Technological and Social are the top three factors. The paper ends with a conclusion and future work recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003, a network for hydrology of the semiarid region (REHISA in Portuguese) was created in Brazil. Since then, experimental watersheds in this region has been providing hydrometeorological data collected in automatic stations. However, the spatial distribution of these gauges might be insufficient to thoroughly understand the hydrological processes occurring in the area. Remotely sensed hydrological variables presents a possible way to overcome such limitations as long as these estimates prove to have enough accuracy. This paper compares the monitored yearly and monthly rainfall in the Guaraíra experimental watershed with data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B42 Version-7 product. The study area has a drainage area of 5.84 km² and is located in the coastal region of Paraíba State, where the mean annual rainfall is 1,700 mm. Two automatic stations provided rainfall data from 2004 to 2011 to assess the satellite estimates in annual and monthly basis. TRMM 3B42V7 performance was evaluated based on graphical analysis. In the annual analysis, relative error ranged from 3 to -51%, however due to the monthly variation, such errors seemed to be insufficient to draw any conclusion, regarding the monthly results. For instance, when the relative error was 3% (difference of 48.3 mm for year 2004), the monthly analysis showed that this was due to a compensation occurred during the year, this is, a month for which rainfall was significantly underestimated by TRMM was compensated by another one when the satellite rainfall was overestimated. On the opposite, in 2007 (relative error 51%, 855 mm of difference), the monthly data analysis showed that just 4 months presented observed data overestimation, but it was enough to result in such annual overestimation. The monthly analysis showed that 29% of the months presented difference between observed rainfall and TRMM data greater than 70 mm and less than 386 mm, which can be considered a relevant error. 72.4% of these cases (monthly analyses) occurred in years in which the annual rainfall were within the ordinary mean (from 1,205 to 1,760 mm/year). Another important result is the underestimation cases were concentrated on the second part of the rainy period. Thus, conclusions points out that TRMM estimates can provide useful information on annual basis, but users should be aware concerning the underestimation, specially on monthly basis for the studied region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parametric and non-parametric approaches for rainfall generation have been widely used in hydrological simulation. Both approaches, however, show inherent limitations for representing precipitation extremes. Hence, a stochastic generator able to represent all the range of precipitation amounts is desired. This paper presents a mixed stochastic generator designed for this purpose: the low to moderate rainfall amounts are modeled by the non-parametric approach, avoiding the adjustment of theoretical probability density functions to this range of precipitation and, the extreme rainfall amounts are modeled by the parametric approach, employing the upper-bounded 4-parameter log-normal (LN4) distribution function, with the upper bound estimated under a Bayesian framework, having the at-site probable maximum precipitation (PMP) as a reference value. The mixed generator was used for simulating a 10,000-year long series in the Pará river catchment, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Results showed that mean daily rainfall, the correspondent standard deviation, coefficient of skewness, number of wet days, and mean monthly and annual rainfall are adequately reproduced. Furthermore, by combining in a logical structure of analysis a prior distribution describing the uncertainties about the PMP estimates and the rainfall data, one can expect more reliable estimates of rare and extreme quantiles and their related uncertainties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the return to democracy in the late 1980s, Brazil developed a new system of water governance with a decentralization of responsibilities and the formation of participatory, deliberative institutions that characterized the governance reforms in general. Tripartite “water basin committees”, with an equal representation of state, municipal and civil society actors, are now responsible for water resource management in each basin and for decisions that affect urban water governance. However, state representatives come from entities established long before the reforms, raising the question of whether the new participatory bodies can change water management practices. This paper suggests that despite the process of transition in water governance, the underlying power inequalities have not been addressed and major decisions are still being taken outside the new deliberative bodies. Technocratic government actors maintain a claim on authority through their economic superiority and their use of expert knowledge, ultimately inhibiting the influence of other actors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper aims to draw attention to the intricacies of hybrid network governance in a challenging institutional landscape. The empirical focus is a case study of the recovery process from the Fundão dam rupture, Brazil's most significant environmental disaster, and the largest in the world involving tailings dams. To drill into the barriers to cross-sector partnerships, we adopted a multi-methods approach, including interviews, grey materials and documents, participant observation and social network analysis. We identified interrelated barriers and grouped them into institutional, power and knowledge barriers, which act through a positive feedback loop leading to a structural arrangement that is inadequate for collaboration in disaster management. As a result, the Doce river basin's recovery process has taken the form of a wicked industrial disaster, enabling a "chain reaction" of increasing wickedness. We thereby advance cross-sector partnership research by drawing attention to the underlying causes of failure and offer guidance to public and private managers on possible strategies to address the barriers to cross-sector partnerships. • Wicked industrial disasters are processual phenomena, not just an event with an impact. • Interrelated barriers create a positive feedback cycle hindering collaboration. • Cross-sector partnerships barriers are complex and create uncertainty and dispute. • Cross-sector partnership should have been formed based on moral and material concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the process of internationalising the legal mobilisation that sought reparations for the mining disaster that took place in 2015 in the city of Mariana, the Doce River basin and on Brazil's southeastern coastline. It seeks to understand the dynamics produced by activating different levels of justice and the effects of internationalisation on the functioning of justice institutions at national level. Two separate patterns of internationalisation are noted: a) via the traditional human rights defence networks; and b) a new one, promoted by an international office specialised in "alternative litigation financing" (ALF), which employs arguments from environmental law and transnational legislation. The characteristics of these two patterns are examined along with their effects on the dynamics of legal mobilisation and national institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating water and sediment analysis with land use brings significant results in understanding the transformations in the watershed and assessing anthropic actions. We assess water and sediment samples collected in four sites in a countryside urban-farming watershed landscape in Southern Brazil. We performed the land-use, physical–chemical, microbiological, potentially toxic element (Pb, Cd, Zn, Cu, Ni, and Cr), atrazine, 2.4-D, microbiological contamination analysis, and total organic carbon, nutrients, and granulometry. We also calculate the Water quality index, geoaccumulation index, enrichment factor, and ecological risk potential, with SQGs (TEL and PEL). Our results demonstrate that all the water samples of this study were contaminated with faecal and total coliforms, alerting the effectiveness of treatment at these plants. We found no significant concentrations of pesticides in the water. The concentration of metals in the sediment was in the order of Cu > Zn > Cr > Ni > Pb > Cd, with Igeo = 0–3 for Cu, Zn, and EF < 3 for Cu. The Cu concentration was eight times higher than TEL, Cr, and Cu above TEL at all sites. We found a strong positive correlation between atrazine, 2.4-D, Pb, and nutrients from agricultural activities and higher concentrations at the one site. The Zn, Cu, Ni, Cd, and Cr sources were plantations, forests, and domestic sewage discharges. The results corroborate with the proposition that complete assessments of watersheds including analyses of water, sediment, and land uses are necessary to understand the real effects of anthropic action on this ecosystem and diversity of this environmental. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Paranaense de Desenvolvimento is the property of Revista Paranaense de Desenvolvimento and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper critically examines Brazil's transbasin diversion experiences and two select, large-scale transbasin projects outside of Brazil. Rather than simply compare Brazil's experiences with international cases, the authors explore the historical context of the projects, focusing on the water resources and environmental regulatory and institutional frameworks in place during the initial proposals and how they influenced the projects' development and completion rates. Huge investments, the lengthy time span between the date of the initial project proposals and the start of construction, the need to garner public and political support, and more recently, the need to fulfill national and regional environmental laws are major factors underlying heated public debates about the proposed projects. After a broad discussion about the subject, the authors examine a recently approved large-scale Brazilian project, the Sao Francisco river transbasin diversion. This river diversion project is considered crucial to the economic development of Brazil's semi-arid northeastern region. Despite the fact that this government-funded project was debated for several decades among the various stakeholders, it was approved under Brazil's newly formed water resources regulatory and environmental framework, which enabled improvements in various key technical aspects of the project, and greater involvement of various key social players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite advances in water resources management and planning, the São Francisco River Basin in Brazil has suffered from systematic drought problems in recent years, leading to severe human and environmental water security threats. This paper aims to track the water security for different periods and its relations with the changes in physical and natural asset conditions. The paper explores how investment planning to mitigate the water security threats and explore opportunities to increase the value of investments. The paper finds that grey infrastructure has regulated threats from increasing in the downstream of the river basin, however, continuous increase in water security threats in the upstream of the basin threatens water security downstream. This is evident from the spatial connectivity and unidirection externalities. As the capacity to further increase in grey investment is reaching its limit in the downstream, the increases in green infrastructure investment upstream, especially in the Grande River basin, could be one the way to reduce the externalities and minimise the water security risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Amazon Basin is the world's largest tropical forest region and one where rapid human changes to land cover have the potential to cause significant changes to hydrological and biogeochemical processes. The Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) is a multidisciplinary, multinational research program led by Brazil. The goal of LBA is to understand how the Amazon Basin functions as a regional entity in the earth system and how these functions are changing as a result of ongoing human activity. This compilation of nine papers focuses on a central LBA question in the area of nutrient dynamics and surface water chemistry—how do changes in land use alter fluxes of dissolved and particulate materials from uplands across riparian zones and down the channels of river corridors? These papers cover work conducted in small watersheds on a wide range of topics within the spirit and geographical focus area of LBA: water balance and runoff generation, nutrient transformations in riparian zones and stream channels, carbon fluxes in water moving from land to water and the influence of soils on flowpath structure and stream chemistry. Important new insights can be gained from these and other studies. Forest clearing for pastures results in a decrease in soil hydraulic conductivity that forces water into surficial flowpaths throughout most of the rainy season across wide regions of the Amazon. Riparian zones along small forest streams appear to be very effective in removing nitrate arriving from the uplands, while forest streams take up nitrate at very low rates, allowing them to travel downstream for long distances. Although substantial, the contribution of dissolved organic C (DOC) to the carbon flux from forests to streams appears to be lower than the flux of dissolved inorganic C that is subsequently outgassed as CO2. Remaining key challenges within LBA will be to synthesize existing data sets on river networks, soils, climate, land use and planned infrastructure for the Amazon to develop models capable of predicting hydrologic and biogeochemical fluxes at a variety of scales relevant to the development of strategies for sustainable management of the Amazon's remarkable forest, soil and freshwater resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several adaptive systems have been proposed that are based on the concepts of smart cities, which can be successfully adapted to natural disasters or other public safety concerns. Since these systems are embedded in a critical and dynamic environment, it is really important to have an infrastructure that is capable of providing real-time environmental information. This paper discusses two research questions that arise from adaptive ubicomp systems: ( i ) what are the key requirements to provide a reliable WSN-based system (e.g. a river monitoring system)? and ( ii ) how can an adaptable and reliable WSN-based system be developed? This paper seeks to respond to the former question with the aid of the RESS standard platform. The latter question is answered by employing a generic approach for adaptation. The term “critical systems”, means that any error may result in the loss of human life. We devised the RESS standard after deploying the WSN-based river monitoring system in Brazil for five years. Our prototype underwent several trials, sometimes leading to failure or damage, before we came up with a more reliable solution, which is outlined in this article. Finally, while our RESS platform is policy-free, it is extensible/adaptable and hence can naturally be adapted to new policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Brazilian Review of Economics & Agribusiness / Revista de Economia e Agronegócio is the property of Brazilian Review of Economics & Agribusiness / Revista de Economia e Agronegocio and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Energy securities, increases in fossil fuel prices, and concern about climate change have been major causes of increased bioenergy production. Because biomass production is rural-based and generally labor-intensive, bioenergy development happens mainly in less developed countries. Comprehensive analysis is needed to develop appropriate policies to ensure the sustainability of resource use while promoting economic development. Given this, public policies must promote more efficient inter- and intra-sector water allocation schemes. Economic instruments, such as water pricing and water markets, can be used to avoid transferring negative environmental and economic impacts of meeting global renewable energy targets to production regions. In Brazil, water markets are not allowed, but the law has established raw water charges as a management instrument at the river basin level. However, the majority of bulk water charge systems have been defined exclusively for raising revenue. Integrated economic modeling can be a useful tool to support the design of effective economic instruments. This paper describes the main features of two economic modeling approaches that can support effective water pricing decisions. Three case studies illustrate sugarcane ethanol production river basins in Brazil where water prices have already been established but fail to reflect the real scarcity value of water in the region. In addition, preliminary results of a national-level economic model being built for Brazil show that increasing water charges for the agricultural sector can have significant effects on water demand and agriculture production. The potential benefits of water pricing policy decisions based on economic modeling results are assessed. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]