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Context: Understanding how landscape pattern influences water quality is crucial for landscape planning and management aimed at providing hydrological services. Simulation modeling is a useful tool for exploring the effects of landscape heterogeneity on ecological processes. Objectives: Evaluate how forest proportion and configuration at both the watershed and riparian zone scales influence sediment yield. Methods: We selected a sub-basin in São Paulo state, Brazil, and created four scenarios with systematic and random allocation of forest cover in watershed replicates. For each landscape, sediment yield was estimated using a sediment delivery ratio model, while the pattern was quantified using landscape metrics. We compared the outcomes of different scenarios and assessed the influence of forest proportion and configuration on annual sediment loads. Results: The proportion of forest cover in the watershed explained up to 55% and spatial autocorrelation explained up to 7% of the variation in sediment yield in random landscapes. Forest proportion in both the watershed and riparian zone was the stronger predictor of water quality, and the location of forest patches alongside the stream was the most important configuration aspect. In random landscapes without continuous forest riparian buffers and with intermediate amounts of forest cover, disaggregated forest patches were associated with better water quality. Conclusions: Both watershed and riparian zone scales and composition and configuration should be considered in landscape planning and management to improve water quality. We recommend as priority management actions implementing a continuous forest riparian buffer, followed by increasing forest amount in areas close to the stream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the effects of landscape configuration on nutrient concentrations in aquatic systems, apart from land cover percentages, remain limited. Understanding these influences is important to guide land use planning and avoid the undesirable consequences of artificial eutrophication. We investigated how land use and natural landscape attributes such as edge density, mean shape index, cohesion, and contagion were related to nitrate (N-NO3) and phosphate (P-PO4) concentrations in Brazilian streams and Mexican lakes. Data on nutrient concentrations were collected by citizen science volunteers from 2013 to 2016, and we calculated land use classes and landscape metrics for each watershed. We developed models to predict nutrient concentrations based on landscape metrics, watershed slope, and season after excluding autocorrelated predictors. We used the Generalized Additive Model for Location, Shape and Scale framework and found the distribution (gamma or lognormal) that provided the best fit to the data based on the Akaike Information Criterion. The best predictors were selected following a stepwise strategy. We found relatively high N-NO3 (5–10 mg/L) and P-PO4 (0.5–1.0 mg/L) concentrations in the watersheds in both countries. Landscape composition (percentages of urban and agricultural areas) and configuration (mean shape indexes for urban and agricultural land use) metrics were the key predictors in the model for P-PO4 in Brazilian streams. In Mexican lakes, the predictors of nutrient concentrations were configuration metrics such as contagion and edge density of natural areas for P-PO4, and cohesion of urban areas for N-NO3. Our findings can be used as a starting point for land use planning, as well as for helping managers predict nutrient enrichment in watersheds within existing urban and agricultural areas. Our study highlights the importance of community-based monitoring that supplements regular monitoring initiatives because we were able to use data collected by citizen scientists to assess potential drivers of nutrient pollution and differences between countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • This article compares conservation guidelines and Protected Areas created in Brazil. • The analysis was performed for the whole country and at a single State (São Paulo). • Federal Protected Areas were created mainly in areas of high biological importance. • Other factors than science guide the creation of State Protected Areas in São Paulo. • Misallocation of public funds for conservation occurs largely in São Paulo. Abstract The current rates of biodiversity loss are amongst the major global environmental problems, especially in the tropics. The creation of Protected Areas (PAs) is the most widespread strategy adopted for the minimization of such problem. However, official studies that guide the creation of PAs frequently do not convert their outcomes into conservation. This problem is not expected in Brazil, because scientific studies for the definition of priority areas for conservation were ordered by the same institutions in charge of the creation and management of PAs. In this paper, we compared the spatial distribution of PAs created in Brazil in the past decade with studies of priority areas for the protection of biodiversity. At a federal level of analysis, 19.44% of federal PAs are located in non-priority sites, which represents 0.47% of the total land area of federal PAs created. At a state level, 71.05% of state PAs are located in non-priority sites, which represents 60.68% of the total land area of state PAs created. In 2015, the total cost for the preservation of PAs in non-priority classes was US$ 17,539.30 (3.28% of the annual budget for federal PAs created after 2007) at federal level and US$ 541,745.02 (55.98% of the annual budget for state PAs created after 2008) at state level. The findings contribute to the development of strategies for the creation of new PAs in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of protected areas is one of the most common environmental policy tools which can effectively contribute to landscape protection, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem services provision. In this sense, the Brazilian Law on Native Vegetation Protection establishes the legal reserves, mandatory protected spaces within private rural lands, which seek to maintain and restore ecological functions and promote biodiversity conservation. This paper aims to present an approach that attempted to locate potential protected spaces, in the form of legal reserves, in the East Zone of Ribeirão Preto – a recharge zone of the Guarani Aquifer System. We made use of seven criteria to create five possible scenarios with varying priorities for native vegetation protection or restoration. Then, we used eight landscape metrics, as well as the level of compliance with the law, to discuss the viability of each scenario in terms of ecological thresholds and landscape indicators. We found only one scenario (the broader perspective on recovering the natural vegetation corridors) capable of meeting the ecological and legal requirements. We conclude that using less data-demanding methods, such as the one applied in this research, could be useful in assisting decision-making regarding the selection of areas for conservation or restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the limitations and implications to environmental management issues posed by the Environmental Licensing approach adopted in São Paulo State. In Brazil, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an essential precondition to the Environmental Licensing of activities and, in fact, it has been the most important and required tool for the licensing of projects. However, in 1994 the State of São Paulo implemented a simplified instrument called a “Preliminary Environmental Report” in order to make the environmental licensing process faster. Since then, the Preliminary Environmental Report (PER) has had the role of indicating whether an EIA needs to be elaborated upon or not. The positives and negatives regarding technical, institutional and legal aspects related to the use of Preliminary Environmental Reports (rather than EIA) are discussed using the case study of a high-pressure natural gas pipeline between the cities of São Carlos and Porto Ferreira in the State of São Paulo. The main conclusion is that the Environmental Licensing process in São Paulo should not use PERs as the sole input to decision making about proposed activities, since the PER approach does not guarantee that the proposed activity is environmentally suitable, does not address locational issues or comparison of alternatives, and risk assessment issues are not considered in the earliest stages of assessment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]