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The Cerrado is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, a key hydrological area of Brazil and home to socio-culturally diverse groups. However, the expansion of agribusiness activities in the Cerrado biome has led to acute social-ecological disturbances. Deploying strategies that promote socially and ecologically sustainable land use therein is hence imperative. One such strategy encompasses the harvesting, processing and commercialization of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs). This paper thus aims to uncover what interdependent social-ecological dynamics hinder and/or facilitate the consolidation of NTFP activities as a strategy to promote sustainable land use in the Cerrado and how to overcome the challenges permeating these activities. It does so by analyzing NTFP activities in Pirenópolis, Goiás, originally combining different fields of research. This research highlights social-ecological dynamics resulting in positive outcomes, such as the satisfaction of material and socio-cultural needs, the protection and planting of tree species, and a sound knowledge on the ecology and phenology of NTFPs, as well as on sustainable harvesting techniques. Notwithstanding, the results also demonstrate that power imbalances, insufficient local capacity and the agribusiness hegemony hamper NTFP activities in Pirenópolis. This paper emphasizes the urgency of addressing power asymmetries, especially considering the need for the formulation of land use policies that can tackle issues of access to land and NTFPs. This research moreover points to the importance of stronger social relations that can enhance the role of NTFP activities as a strategy to promote sustainable land use. • This paper provides an original analysis on the role NTFPs as a strategy to promote sustainable land use. • The case study encompasses NTFP activities in Pirenópolis, a municipality located in Brazil's Cerrado. • Positive social-ecological outcomes of NTFP activities are observed in Pirenópolis. • However, power asymmetries and the path-dependent legacy inherent in the agribusiness hegemony hamper NTFP activities therein. • A socio-political environment enabling the tackling of power asymmetries is key for overcoming the challenges permeating NTFP activities in the Cerrado. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Evaluation of Brazilian State Forest Institutions (SFI) in charge of forest concessions and planted forests is proposed. • SFI performance is measured against forestry goals by using the 3 L Model and criteria and indicator approach. • The 3 L Model produced a comprehensive overview of the selected Brazilian SFIs in practice. Abstract More than half of Brazilian territory (54%), or approx. 463 million ha, is covered by forests. Public forest ownership dominates with up to 80%, private forests cover cca. 20% and cca. 8% is unclaimed. In public forests the practice of concessions is growing, with the expectation of reducing the problem of Amazonian illegal loggings. Private forests are mainly under plantation management, which generates 5.5% of the country's industrial gross domestic product. Relevance of both is accordingly high, although not dominant in forest share. A key question for forest policy is how successfully the state regulates both issues in practice. Our paper accordingly focuses on the Brazilian Forest Service and the Ministry of Agriculture, which are state forest institutions in charge of forest concessions and planted forests. We look at their performance against legally based forestry goals and rely on primary (participatory observation, semi-structured personal interviews and questionnaire) and secondary sources (documents) for empirical evidence. The 3 L Model serves as a theoretical basis. It was selected while applying criteria and indicators for evaluation of public institutions´ comprehensive performance with respect to sustainable forest management. The results show that Brazilian forest policy strives toward sustainable forest management, as an overall goal. In more particular, the performance of both examined state forest institutions is more market (than public demand) oriented and moves towards strengthening market competences. At the same time, there are constrains in sustaining forest stands. Due to permanent and strong conflicts related to land use changes in Brazil, the relevance of a mediator, aiming to harmonize all different interests related to forest protection and use, is high, but this role is still not taken, at least not by the evaluated state forest institutions. This represents new task for the forestry practice, while facilitating diverse interests in Brazilian forests could not only be a contribution toward conflict management between environmental, forestry and agribusiness actors but could also grant stronger political role to respective state forest institution(s). For attending this role, the performance evaluation of the whole and rather complex forest-related institutional setting in Brazil could provide relevant science-based policy arguments. This paper shows that the 3 L Model could be applied for such evaluation, as it was possible to adapt it to a non-European country and get a comprehensive overview of Brazilian plantation and concession forestry in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides two contributions to the research on urban planning and the financialization of land use. Instead of stressing the consequences of finance on others, it prioritizes the analysis of the social-technical constitution of finance itself within urban planning, and does so in an emerging country setting, which is still relatively understudied in the existing literature. We analyse a specific Brazilian planning instrument, i.e., the sale of securitized building certificates (CEPACs) in large urban (re)development projects (UDPs), as a potential constituent space of urban financialization. The paper explores how planners, financial consultants, contractors and builders/developers effectively shape the contradictory financial and physical design and implementation of UDPs with CEPACs. Although the initial evidence shows that there are still clear limits to the penetration of financial logics into land use planning, continuing regulatory rollout and the increasing activism of foreign investors suggest the instrument’s open-ended trajectory, with a potentially more significant role for financial actors in constituting urban financialization through CEPACs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural trade and climate change have altered land cover and land use worldwide. For example, the recent growth of international soybean demand has been associated with 1.3 Mha primary Amazon forest loss and up to 13-fold increase in double-cropping areas in Brazil. Many studies have tried to understand which and how global and local drivers affect deforestation and agricultural intensification processes at the landscape level, yet few have incorporated the direct perspectives of actual land users. Under the influence of a variety of social, economic, and cultural factors, producers are the ones who make decisions that will cause a significant impact on the environment. In this paper, we adopted Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs), a semi-quantitative modeling approach to represent complex decision-making systems, and we modeled land use and agricultural management perceptions of 27 crop producers from the three states - Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Tocantins - important soybean production and export areas in Brazil. We analyzed individual models and integrated them into aggregated regional models to compare individual and regional differences among the producers. In addition, we simulated how producers from the three states will make land-use decisions under more trade and extreme climatic events scenarios using the FCMs. Our results indicate that extreme climatic events are among the most important factors producers consider when it comes to the sustainability of their operations. Climate change scenarios have a stronger overall impact than trade scenarios on local land-use changes, causing a 12% reduction in total agricultural production. The improvement of technology packages can effectively mitigate climate change risks and has an overall positive impact on land-use intensification than expansion. On the other hand, sharing accurate climate information and socio-economic improvements such as credits have larger impacts on agricultural expansion than productivity itself. Moreover, the model complexity shows differences among the three states. Soybean trade has more weight in the perception of producers in Goiás and Tocantins than Mato Grosso. Based on the results, we discuss the importance of co-designing place-based, alternative policies and mitigation options for both agricultural intensification and environmental conservation, taken into consideration through the intertwined global and local forces. • Mapping perceptions of soybean producers across Brazil reveals heterogeneous characters, concepts, and relationships. • Climate change has vast and more severe impacts to land-use change decisions than trade. • Producers acknowledge the contribution of international trade to local production, social, and infrastructure development. • Land actors' varied perceptions demand place-based policies, balancing environmental and agricultural sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban stormwater management is one of the key challenges concerning sustainability in urban areas. Sustainable urban stormwater management (SUSM) has been increasingly adopted around the world and proved its effectiveness in enhancing sustainability and quality of life in cities. Nevertheless, these strategies are yet to be widely adopted in developing countries. This paper presents barriers to the widespread adoption of SUSM in Brazil, as a developing country case study with severe urban stormwater management problems. To achieve this objective, a thorough review of literature on the barriers has been conducted. An online survey has been designed and disseminated to different Brazilian participant stakeholder groups (i.e. public professionals, private professionals, teachers, and population) to identify the SUSM-related barriers in Brazil. The reviews recognized 31 potential barriers in literature which were categorized into six barrier types. Five of the evaluated barriers have been recognized by at least 80% of the respondents as the most important, namely: "Lack of design and maintenance standards", "Lack of long-term planning", "Lack of dissemination and knowledge", "Lack of incentives", and "Reluctance to change". The barriers identified by this research are coherent with the SUSM adoption context in Brazil. These barriers are mainly related to knowledge about SUSM and similar to those diagnosed in previous studies in literature. Overcoming the common barriers is the prelude to effective SUSM solutions to increase urban stormwater sustainability in Brazil and in other developing countries. This paper also presents some initiatives adopted around the world to overcome these barriers, which could be used as reference to an effective public policy proposition. • Twenty barriers were found in Brazil, five of which are considered very important. • The main barriers are related to strategic vision, knowledge, and incentives. • Overcoming the common barriers is a prelude to effective urban stormwater solutions. • The obstacles facing Brazil are similar to those facing in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the turn of the century, Brazilian sugarcane production has increased and the area under sugarcane cultivation has expanded considerably, moves primarily driven by the use of ethanol as a fuel source. The crop’s expansion has impacting land use patterns and employment trends in several of Brazil’s regions. This study assesses the dynamics of land use competition in São Paulo, Brazil, the state responsible for the largest share of sugarcane production and fuel ethanol refining in the country. The assessment employs shift-share analysis carried out in two stages and data from 2000 through 2015. Results indicate that cultivated area dedicated to sugarcane increased dramatically over this period to the detriment not only of pasture areas, as is commonly emphasized in relevant literature, but also of land formerly dedicated to annual and perennial food crops, such as rice, beans, corn, potatoes, cassava, and fruits. The shift in agricultural land use has given rise to three main concerns: (1) land price increases; (2) food price increases; and (3) possible challenges to the use of sugarcane as an economical fuel source. The study analyzed the viability of sugarcane ethanol as a competitive alternative to other energy sources and the risks its use presents to food security. This paper also contains a summary of the "food vs. fuel" debate, adding new elements to refine the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on rural development focuses on the socio-economic effects of agricultural support policies; the process of policy design, however, is devoted less attention. Identifying policy coalitions may help provide clarity on the motivations behind a given agricultural support system. Using Discourse Network Analysis, this paper studies the debates preceding the approval of the National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (Pronaf) in Brazil in the Nineties. This represented a relevant overturn of the preceding policy framework. Two coalitions that opposed each other have been identified: while large farm business associations favoured measures to enhance productivity, movements comprising of family farmers aimed at introducing credit instruments for small producers. The strong pressure from social movements was key to the adoption of Pronaf. However, findings suggest that the Workers’ Party, which found itself in a less conflicting position, played a brokerage role in the negotiation of the final policy package. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After forest governance reforms by the Brazilian government, Amazon deforestation rates dropped by almost 80% between 2004 and 2012. Since then, however, deforestation has slowly increased again, casting doubts on the long-term sustainability of past conservation policy achievements. Clearly, deforestation rates and the associated local drivers of land-use and land-cover change differ considerably across the region, and adapting public policies to dynamic local contexts and actor constellations remains a major challenge for decision-makers. This paper seeks to contribute to the related science-policy debate by applying frontier theory insights to map, quantify, and compare land-cover dynamics in the Brazilian Amazon between 2004 and 2015. Our theoretical framework performs well in explaining broad variations in scope, nature, and agents of land-use and land-cover change across different frontier regions. We observe two types of transformative processes at deforestation frontiers in the Amazonian context. First, recent frontier development is characterized by an intensification of cattle ranching, and an increasing share of agricultural activities in the production portfolio, which could be the result of better access to modern technologies and markets, combined with forest governance induced scarcity of land for expansion of historically dominant extensive pasture systems. Second, the share of medium and large-scale deforestation declines at first, but rebounds during the observation period in all frontier types after 2012. Further research is needed to better understand the role of the changing political environment in driving these medium and short-term transformations in land-use and land-cover change. Furthermore, policy-makers, international cooperation, and civil society must seek strong integration between value chain based governance measures and effective environmental law enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family farming plays important roles in agricultural production and the world’s food security. This paper provides an econometric analysis of income, productivity and diversification of Brazilian smallholders. Using the most updated data from the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) enables a more precise analysis than traditional agri-census data. The database contains approximately 4.7 million family farmers from all regions of the country. We used linear and tobit regression to untangle useful information behind these large datasets. The results demonstrated that the smallholders that are part of an agricultural cooperative or a member of a farmer’s association positively affect income, productivity and diversification. The age of household heads is shown to have a non-linear relationship in the three cases, while the household head being female presented a negative effect in all regressions. Although recent technical assistance showed negative impacts on income and productivity, farmer’s assistance positively affected the likelihood of a smallholder diversifying their production and, therefore, becoming less subject to price imbalances. The results support current views in the field of smallholder farming while presenting marked regional differences of a continental country, enabling policy makers to make better, more informed decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the environmental and social importance of organic food production and increased supply and demand for organic products in the world and in Brazil, the Brazilian Federal Government began a process of regulation of organic agriculture from 1999. In this sense, this article recovers the history of institutionalization of federal regulations pertaining to organic systems of agricultural production in the country, indicating relevant aspects and some changes during 17 years of evolution of this regulatory process. The methodology used was based on the analysis of 30 regulations regarding the organic production in Brazil, highlighting the four most relevant statutes (Normative Instruction 07 of 1999; Law 10,831 of 2003; Decree 6323 of 2007 and Decree 7792 of 2012). Papers were also used to discuss the relevance and the fundamentals of organic agriculture and agroecology; the Brazilian contradictions concerning agribusiness and sustainable agriculture; conflicts in the governmental sphere – highlighting positions of Ministry of Agriculture (MAPA) and Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) and in the relationships established between different actors and institutions, focusing on Brazilian literature. The results indicate that these rules have contributed to the institutional strengthening of organic agriculture and agroecology in Brazil. Nevertheless, the budgetary resources destined to this type of public policy are pitiful compared to those destined for conventional agriculture. Its indicates that although some important advances on organic agriculture and agroecology public policies, the Brazilian government continues prioritizing agribusiness, featured pesticides and GMO uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global interest in biofuels has increased significantly in recent years, mainly due to the concern about climate change. In Brazil, the land area under sugarcane cultivation has expanded in unprecedented ways to meet the increasing ethanol demand of both the domestic and international markets. São Paulo is the Brazilian state with the highest production of sugarcane, and the expansion of this activity can impact both the environment and society. The purpose of this paper was to assess and map the sensitivity of the areas used for sugarcane cultivation in São Paulo state and to provide a holistic approach to sugarcane production from the sustainability perspective by integrating indicators of the environmental, social and economic spheres without focusing on one single element. Five environmental indicators (related to water resources, slope, environmental conservation areas, land use and agricultural potential) and six socioeconomic indicators (related to employment, income, education, gender equality, child labor and forced labor) were selected for the analysis. The methodology comprised the Categorical Principal Components Analysis (CATPCA) technique and the spatialization of results in a Geographic Information System. The resulting maps of sensitivity show the patterns of the three retained principal components and provide an information-rich tool that the government can use in decision making, policy formulation and the integrated planning of land use, thereby enabling the identification of both hotspots and which issues should be prioritized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between human welfare and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazonia has traditionally been thought to follow a boom-and-bust pattern. According to this pattern, forest clearing triggers rapid increases in human welfare levels (“the boom”) due to short-term economic gains; these levels then drop to below national or regional averages (“the bust”) after the forest stocks have declined, thus causing the local populations to become deprived of ecosystem services. However, recent studies have questioned the validity of this boom-and-bust pattern. In this paper, we use panel data and simultaneous autoregressive models to evaluate the effects of deforestation, urbanization, public investments, agriculture, and state policies on temporal changes in human welfare that occurred across multiple municipalities in the Brazilian Amazonia from 2005 to 2012, a period during which governments implemented a set of strategies aimed at controlling deforestation across the region. We found that: (a) signals of a boom-and-bust pattern are weak at the regional level, and therefore this pattern cannot be generalized across the entire region; (b) human welfare is increasing more rapidly in low-development municipalities than in high-development cities, and all municipalities are converging on at least one regional average rather than on a national average; (c) urbanization does not lead to positive changes in human welfare, which indicates that the infrastructure available in regional urban centers is limited; (d) public investments are negatively associated with human welfare growth, thus signifying that if public investments are not used to leverage the potential of other sectors of the local economy, human welfare will not improve; (e) agriculture is negatively associated with positive changes in human welfare at the local level, possibly due to the dominance of cattle-ranching as the predominant economic activity of this sector; and (f) state-level policies matter, and future analyses of regional trends in the realm of development and conservation across this region should take such policies into account. Finally, we suggest that although human welfare and deforestation retain a weak statistical relationship, we cannot contend that they have been fully decoupled. Forest loss across the region is still pervasive, and institutions are too weak to sustain the transition from a frontier development model to a conservation-centered model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines citizens’ opinions about one crucial factor: the fire that affects the Brazilian savannah “Cerrado”. The paper aims at introducing a new tool that facilitates the assessment of people’s behaviour in order to support practitioners and decision makers to develop management strategies that fostering the environmental conservation, economic growth and human wellbeing. The study applies the network analysis in order to analyse the citizens’ opinions about causes of fire ignition and suppression activities for firefighting evoked by local inhabitants during the face-to-face interviews. The main finding carried out in this work is the usefulness of a cognitive map for synthesising a variety of people’s beliefs. Furthermore, the study reveals the general lack of awareness among people concerning fire use and management and the careless use of fire in rural activities. The chi-square test reveals that natural and physical dimensions affect society’s beliefs with statistical significance p < 0.001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil was the first country to submit a reference level (RL) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aiming to claim results-based payments for reduced emissions from deforestation in the REDD+ mechanism. This voluntary RL submission has passed an official technical assessment process by the UNFCCC on the accordance of the data and method applied, which was finalised in December 2014. After years of international negotiations this has become possible by the REDD+ framework finally agreed. Although never formally adopted, the rules of procedure of the UNFCCC foresee consensus among the 196 parties to the convention. Due to the wide heterogeneity in national circumstances and capacities between these parties, the decided REDD+ framework represents a compromise, and in some points space for interpretation remains due to a lack of clear definitions. E.g., no internationally standardised method exists for the design of RLs under UNFCCC; rather each country has the possibility to apply its own approach within a given range of requirements. We argue that these nationally designed RLs involve the danger of raising a ‘cherry-picking’ mentality, which would reduce cost-efficiency of the payments. Especially in the light of the ongoing pressure to fight anthropogenic global climate change, the overall objective of REDD+ should be climate effectiveness. Therefore, apparently contradictory objectives—of integrating as many developing countries as possible, by keeping the barriers low, and of effective emission reductions by persisting on strict rules for national carbon accounting—had to be balanced. According to the technical assessment by the UNFCCC, the submitted Brazilian RL fulfils all formal requirements. However, as implication of the negotiated framework, there remain some questions on the climate effectiveness and the cost-efficiency of the submitted approach, which this viewpoint paper aims to critically reflect. Brazil chose for its present RL design the eligible options of a subnational coverage, with consideration of the activity of deforestation only. But only comprehensive accounting of all activities on national scale can ensure that all potential emissions are accounted for. By the present accounting gap, doubts on climate effectiveness arise. Furthermore, Brazil chose a fixed starting year for historic emissions and did not consider national circumstances, which results in reference emissions of about 1100 Mt CO 2 /a between 2006 and 2010. This potentially profitable RL setting for Brazil raises doubt on the cost-efficiency of the implied REDD+ payment. Whether these problems arising from the four eligible but critical RL options applied by Brazil emerge in other RLs as well, was checked for further five RL proposals submitted up to now. None of these country submissions has passed the technical assessment yet. The submitted approaches for RL design differ among the considered countries but one can see a tendency towards profitable individual RL definitions, similar to the Brazilian RL. From our findings we conclude that individually determined RLs without standardised methods bear the risk of national ‘cherry-picking’ which can compromise climate effectiveness and cost-efficiency of the whole REDD+ mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way vegetation is officially named, classified, and identified has critical implications for ecosystems and biodiversity conservation. Yet little attention is given to how such issues hinder the efficacy of laws mandating environmental conservation on private land. In the Brazilian Amazon where half of the land is now already under private tenure or is available for future land-uses, differences in vegetation mapping and interpretation directly affect the level of protection in private rural properties, especially in transition areas where forest and savanna areas intermingle. Since Brazil's Native Vegetation Protection Law (NVPL) attaches a higher percentage of protection to forest-located properties, landowners may be tempted to use conflicting mappings and different vegetation classifications to claim their properties are located in areas other than forests to reduce their conservation requirements. In this paper, we compare three official vegetation databases and examine different law interpretation scenarios to assess the extent to which the level of private conservation may fluctuate. We found a difference of up to 430,000 km2 of protected vegetation (an area the size of Iraq) according to the database and vegetation characteristics chosen. This technical ambiguity may lead to make additional deforestation legal or reduce sharply the amount of vegetation to be restored for these areas, if left unaddressed. Clarifying the database and criteria used to define forest is critical, especially as Brazilian states may make different choices in that regard, and cases in which loopholes are exploited occurred in the recent past. Given the importance of this region for global biodiversity conservation and climate, we highlight the urgent need to: (1) support additional research to clarify vegetation characteristics and location; (2) agree on a harmonized methodology to determine forests for NVPL implementation, and (3) explore alternative criteria for defining forests when databases conflict. • Accurate native vegetation mapping is key to private forest conservation. • Uncertain vegetation classification weakens compliance with Brazil's forest law. • Study provides scenarios exploring the implications of multiple vegetation databases. • 430,000 square kilometers of the Brazilian Amazon are at risk of reduced protection. • Both deforestation and native vegetation restoration are affected by this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to democratize access to land have a long history in Brazil. Although initially focused mainly on the rural sector, in recent decades they have also gained some momentum in the cities. The central notion that has oriented these efforts is the so-called social function of property, which asserts that the right of private ownership includes an obligation to use land in ways that benefit society as a whole. This paper examines the development of this principle in Brazil in terms of both legislation and policy implementation and evaluates the criticisms that have been leveled against attempts to put it into practice. It argues that the social function principle has been extensively integrated into Brazilian legislation, but actual implementation has thus far been modest, especially in the urban sector. These efforts have been criticized on economic, environmental and cost-effectiveness grounds, but none of these criticisms is entirely convincing. Given the marked inequality in landholding in Brazil, the social function continues to be an important tool for enhancing popular welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: It has been nearly 10 years since the federal government of Brazil decided to make land tenure regularization a true priority. In theory, millions of families who informally occupy the federal domain should receive freeholds, emphyteutic leases, concessions of real or special rights, or occupancy authorizations. However, this paper questions the capacity of the Federal Land Agency to issue and manage these leases, concessions, and authorizations. It also argues that the future and sustainability of this land regularization policy are challenged by a controversial federal land tax and inaccessible land registration services. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This article provides a historical overview of land use policies and urban development in Brazil, especially during the period when the country experienced high rates of urbanization. Since most land use policy is enacted at the national level, a synopsis of Federal legislation regulating property rights and land tenure is presented, including a recent law known as the City Statute, which institutes new parameters and tools to advance the regularization of informal settlements in urban areas. A description of how urban planning tools have been used by several local governments, in isolation and in combination with land use policies, to regularize informal settlements follows an exploration of new land tenure paradigms that focus on legitimacy rather than legality. The paper concludes with an analysis of prospects for land ownership and security of tenure for the urban poor in Brazil. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Smallholder agriculture plays a key role to promote food security in Brazil. Population ageing together with fertility decline and expanded educational opportunities for youth present challenges for the continuation of family agriculture across generations, and those challenges are especially difficult for smallholder farmers. This paper examines farm succession decisions in Western Paraná, Brazil using survey data collected through face-to-face interviews with 205 soybean farmers chosen randomly to be representative of the region's soybean farmers. Approximately 64% of the soybean farmers reported planning to pass on their farm business to the next generation. Traditional gender norms hinder succession plans. The empirical analysis using linear probability models shows that the probability of succession decreases by 37 ppts if the households do not have any male children. Farms with more than 72 ha are more likely to have a family successor than smaller farms. Farmers with college education are less likely to pass on their farms to their children than farmers with less education. Participation in federal government programs that provide subsidized credit such as Pronaf, which is aimed at smallholders, is associated with a higher probability of succession to a son or daughter. Government programs that provide subsidized credit and encourage families to make succession plans might increase succession rates. In an environment of decreasing fertility, adhering to traditional gender roles limits the probability that a farm will be continued successfully across generations. • Around 64% of soybean farmers in Paraná, Brazil reported planning to pass on their farm business to the next generation. • The probability of succession decreases by 34 percentage points if the households do not have any sons. • However, having diverse agriculture activity somewhat offsets this negative effect of having only daughters. • Farmers with college education are less likely to plan to pass on their farms to their children. • Subsidized credit provided to smallholder farmers might help with succession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban sprawl is related, among other factors, to local planning policies that aim to drive economic growth through spatial planning but fail to regulate urban expansion. Even land use plans originally designed to restrict urban sprawl appear to be ineffective when approached by local authorities. Withal, little attention has been given into analysing local master plans implementations and their relation with territorial governance. In this paper, we focus on the role of territorial governance arrangements in master plans implementation practices. Also, we explore the spatial outcomes of urban growth in a medium-sized Brazilian city, conformance wise to its Master Plans, under different administrations from contrasting political parties. The purpose is to identify discrepancies in urban growth spatial outcomes, according to territorial governance, quantitatively assessing whether the observed growth complied with zoning strategies or comprised nonconforming development. It is arguable that governance capacity affects the spatial distribution of urban growth and, consequently, the regulation of urban sprawl. The results show disparate patterns of urban growth corresponding to different administrations, even under the same plan implementation, suggesting that the spatial outcomes could have been shaped either by the enforcement or the abstention of planning regulations, characterizing contrasting approaches on territorial governance. • Assessment of whether the observed growth complied with zoning strategies or comprised nonconforming development. • Different governance arrangements influence urban sprawl containment, through master plans implementations locally. • Master plan implementation practices relate to urban growth according to different municipal administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water Safety Plan is an international tool developed by the World Health Organization to enable the implementation of better water quality guarantees regarding human health issues. This current tool´s template deals with water quantity suring the occurrence of floods and droughts only as emergency situations. The key issues of this paper are how we may integrate proactive drought and flood planning into the so-called Water Safety Plans. The city of Caraguatatuba, north coast of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, has a large tourist flow a high rate of population growth, and is currently drafting the Water Safety Plan. This article aims to analyze the Caraguatatuba Water Safety Plan and compare its elaboration steps and respective contents to the international practices related to the management of water conflicts with spatial guidelines in order to propose improvements. The methodology starts with an overall view of the Brazilian water system and steps and procedures of Caraguatatuba Water Safety Plan. The case of Caraguatatuba was compared with international practices, and more detailed comparison with a Spanish practice. The key findings were: the need of establishing a legal framework to ensure the plans' successful implementation and accomplishment of recording the occurrence of extreme water events and its incorporation in the diagnostic step in the planning system, and the elaboration of multiple progressive scenarios establishing land use and occupation guidelines. The spatial guidelines improvements are: specific construction criteria for flood zones, targeting activities compatible with flood zones, patrimony insurance for flood management and creation of catchment points for temporary supply, limitation of non-essential uses as swimming pool and car washers, reduce irrigated land for agricultural crops, adoption an exchange bank for the granting of water resources, proportional fee by water quality and improve water use in industrial processes for drought management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]