Search

In recent decades, wildfires have become common disasters that threaten people's lives and assets, particularly in wildland–urban interfaces (WUIs). Developing an effective evacuation strategy for a WUI presents challenges to emergency planners because of the spatial variations in biophysical hazards and social vulnerability. The aim of this study was to map priority WUIs in terms of evacuation. The factors considered were the seriousness of the risk of wildfire exposure, and the population centres whose greatest constraints on the evacuation process stemmed from the nature of the exposed population and the time required to travel to the nearest shelter/refuge. An integrated framework linking wildfire hazard, social vulnerability, and the time taken to travel by foot or by car to the nearest refuge/shelter was applied. The study area includes two municipalities (Lousã and Sertã) in the mountainous areas of central Portugal that are in high-wildfire-risk areas and have very vulnerable and scattered pockets of exposed population. The combination of wildfire risk and travelling time to the nearest shelters made it possible to identify 20% of the WUIs that were priority areas for evacuation in the case of Sertã. In the case of Lousã, 3.4% were identified, because they were highly exposed to wildfire risk and had a travelling time to the nearest shelter of more than 15 min on foot. These results can assist in designing effective pre-fire planning, based on fuel management strategies and/or managing an effective and safe evacuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest remnants are hotspots of biodiversity and play an important role in providing services such as regulating the climate, reducing surface runoff, helping erosion control, protecting and contributing to the balance of ecosystems, and other functions. Despite this, natural vegetation is fragmented and limited to a few remnants, which are gradually suffering from anthropogenic pressures. Assessing the environmental quality of these remnants is therefore vital to understanding their current condition and to provide support for their conservation. This study aims to assess the environmental quality of forest remnants in six water basins in the municipality of Campinas/SP, Brazil. Forest remnants were mapped, and their environmental quality was assessed by applying an analytic hierarchy process (AHP), considering a set of structural landscape metrics previously selected from the literature. Of the 2319 forest remnants evaluated, 4.5% and 30%, respectively, registered high and low environmental quality. The Atibaia and Jaguari basins recorded the highest number of environmentally fragile remnants due to their small size and being predominantly elongated, and to the high erodibility of the soil. In the Anhumas, Capivari, Capivari-Mirim, and Quilombo basins, medium-sized forest remnants predominate. There is a greater distance between them, with a high intensity of land use/land cover in their surroundings, related to the prevalence of urbanized areas. Specific management actions should be taken in each of these basins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing the landscape configuration factors where they are located can ensure a more accurate spatial assessment of the supply of ecosystem services. It can also show if the benefits promoted by ecosystems depend not only on the supply of these services but also on the demand, the cultural values, and the interest of the society where they are located. The present study aims to demonstrate the provision potential of regulating ecosystem services by forest remnants in the municipality of Campinas/SP, Brazil, from the analysis and weighting of geospatial indicators, considering the assumptions of supply of and demand for these ecosystem services. The potential supply of regulating ecosystem services was evaluated through the application of an artificial neural network using landscape indicators previously surveyed for the 2319 forest remnants identified in six watersheds. The findings show that the classified remnants have a "medium" to "very high" regulating potential for the provision of ecosystem services. The use of artificial intelligence fundamentals, based on artificial neural networks, proved to be quite effective, as it enables combined analysis of various indicators, analysis of spatial patterns, and the prediction of results, which could be informative guides for environmental planning and management in urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occurrence of long periods of drought followed by extreme episodes of rainfall and ineffective soil conservation practices are the main causes of soil erosion in the Mediterranean region. The objective of this paper is to assess and compare the hydrological and erosional responses related to land use changes in agricultural landscapes that are sensitive to erosion and that are a result of the significant replacement of traditional land uses. Such changes are characterized by the replacement of extensive olive groves associated with pastureland by intensive almond production, where deep plowing and heavy machinery are required. In each sampling site, runoff initiation, runoff coefficient, and soil loss were evaluated under simulated rainfall (55 mm h−1), at plot scale (0.25 m2), at the end of the hot and dry summer period. Slope gradient, soil texture, bulk density, soil organic matter content, soil water content, and plant cover were also determined. The results showed the impact of recently planted intensive almond orchards (IAOs) on accelerating soil erosion risk compared with the extensive traditional olive groves (EOGs), although runoff initiation and discharge are very similar between the studied land uses. The mean values recorded for soil loss and sediment concentration were 118 g m−2 h−1 and 12 g m−2 h−1 and 3.1 g L−1 and 0.7 g L−1, respectively, for IAOs and EOGs. Our results also demonstrated that maintaining a vegetation cover is a determining factor for the prevention and control of soil erosion, especially in IAOs, where retaining high percentages of natural plant-residue mulch layers (>70%) reduced soil loss by about 70% in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Portugal, the rapid growth in housing in and near wildland–urban interfaces (WUIs) increases the wildfire risk to lives and structures. The goal of our study was to assess wildfire hazard in the Central Region of Portugal and in the contact areas of the 60,373 km of WUIs existing in the study area. The degree to which wildfire is a hazard to the landscape and the different urban interfaces areas was assessed using the spatial arrangement of land use/land cover (LULC), topography, and historical incidence of burnt area. The results show that in more than half of the Central Region territory, the wildfire hazard is high or very high; however, most WUIs are in contact with low or very low hazard classes in a total of 87% of the segments. The LULC analysis in the different wildfire hazard classes in WUI contact areas shows that agricultural crops are predominant in the low and very low hazard classes, while in the very high and high hazard classes shrub communities, coniferous and scrub forests dominate, respectively. These results can assist in designing appropriate prevention measures and improving the effectiveness of fire prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vulnerability assessment is a vital component of wildfire management. This research focuses on the evaluation of wildfire vulnerability in the Central Region of Portugal, an area historically affected by catastrophic fire events. The overall methodology entailed applying an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to the relevant spatial variables for evaluating vulnerability associated with exposure, sensitivity, and response capacity at landscape and the wildland–urban interface (WUI) scale. Of the selected criteria, the existence of fuel in direct contact with built-up areas, population density, and firefighters' travel time were considered the most important criteria for inclusion in the vulnerability map. At landscape scale, 31% of the Central Region presents high and very high classes of vulnerability, while 22% of WUIs are classified as highly vulnerable to fire. Although the inland areas emerge as the most vulnerable, this approach enables scattered vulnerable hotspots to be identified in almost all of the Central Region. The results could be very helpful in terms of developing and enhancing local policies to mitigate human and material damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthocyanins are natural pigments displaying different attractive colors ranging from red, violet, to blue. These pigments present health benefits that increased their use in food, nutraceuticals, and the cosmetic industry. However, anthocyanins are mainly extracted through conventional methods that are time-consuming and involve the use of organic solvents. Moreover, the chemical diversity of the obtained complex extracts make the downstream purification step challenging. Therefore, the growing demand of these high-value pigments has stimulated the interest in designing new, safe, cost-effective, and tunable strategies for their extraction and purification. The current review focuses on the potential application of compressed fluid-based (such as subcritical and supercritical fluid extraction and pressurized liquid extraction) and deep eutectic solvents-based extraction methods for the recovery of anthocyanins. In addition, an updated review of the application of counter-current chromatography for anthocyanins purification is provided as a faster and cost-effective alternative to preparative-scale HPLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]