The Potential to Address Disease Vectors in Favelas in Brazil Using Sustainable Drainage Systems:Zika, Drainage and Greywater Management

Residents of informal settlements, the world over, suffer consequences due to the lack of drainage and greywater management, impacting human and environmental health. In Brazil, the presence of the Aedes aegypti mosquito in urban areas promotes infections of the Zika virus as well as companion viruses, such as dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. By using observation and interviews with the community, this paper shows how a simple sustainable drainage system approach could prevent the accumulation of on-street standing water, and thus reduce opportunities for the mosquito to breed and reduce infection rates. During the interview phase, it became apparent that underlying misinformation and misunderstandings prevail related to existing environmental conditions in favelas and the role of the mosquito in infecting residents. This inhibits recommendations made by professionals to reduce breeding opportunities for the disease vector. Whilst unrest is an issue in favelas, it is not the only issue preventing the human right to reliable, safe sanitation, including drainage. In “pacified” favelas which may be considered safe(r), the infrastructure is still poor and is not connected to the city-wide sanitation/treatment networks

Comparison of sediment bioavailable methods to assess the potential risk of metal(loid)s for river ecosystems

A heavily impacted river basin (Caudal River, NW Spain) by Hg and Cu mining activities, abandoned decades ago, was used to evaluate the environmental quality of their river sediments. The obtained results compared with reference values established by the US EPA and the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment for river sediments, have shown that the main elements of environmental concern are arsenic (As), mercury (Hg) and, to a lesser extent, copper (Cu), which reach concentrations up to 1080, 80 and 54 mg kg-1, respectively. To understand the role that river sediments play in terms of risk to ecosystem health, a comparison has been made between the total content of metal(oid)s in the sediments and the bioavailable contents of the same elements in pore water, passive DGT (Diffusive Gradients in Thin films) samplers and the sediment extractant using acetic acid. A good correlation between the As and Cu contents in the DGTs and the pore water was found, resulting in a transfer from the pore water to the DGT of at least 47% of the Cu and more than 75% of the As when the concentrations were low, with a deployment time of 4 days. When As and Cu concentrations were higher, their transfer was not so high (above 23.6% for As and 19.3% for Cu). The transfer of Hg from the pore water to the DGT was practically nil and does not seem to depend on the content of this metal. The fraction extracted with acetic acid, conventionally accepted as bioavailable, was clearly lower than that captured by DGTs for As and Cu (≤5% and ≤8.5% of the total amount, respectively), while it was similar for Hg (0.2%)

Prediction of Evapotranspiration in a Mediterranean Region Using Basic Meteorological Variables

A critical need for farmers, particularly those in arid and semiarid areas is to have a reliable, accurate and reasonably accessible means of estimating the evapotranspiration rates of their crops to optimize their irrigation requirements. Evapotranspiration is a crucial process because of its influence on the precipitation that is returned to the atmosphere. The calculation of this variable often starts from the estimation of reference evapotranspiration, for which a variety of methods have been developed. However, these methods are very complex either theoretically and/or because of the large amount of parameters on which they are based, which makes the development of a simple and reliable methodology for the prediction of this variable important. This research combined three concepts such as cluster analysis, multiple linear regression (MLR), and Voronoi diagrams to achieve that end. Cluster analysis divided the study area into groups based on its weather characteristics, whose locations were then delimited by drawing the Voronoi regions associated with them. Regression equations were built to predict daily reference evapotranspiration in each cluster using basic climate variables produced in forecasts made by meteorological agencies. Finally, the Voronoi diagrams were used again to regionalize the crop coefficients and calculate evapotranspiration from the values of reference evapotranspiration derived from the regression models. These operations were applied to the Valencian region (Spain), a Mediterranean area which is partly semiarid and for which evapotranspiration is a critical issue. The results demonstrated the usefulness and accuracy of the methodology to predict the water demands of crops and hence enable farmers to plan their irrigation needs.This paper was possible thanks to the research project RHIVU (Ref. BIA2012-32463), financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness with funds from the State General Budget (PGE) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The authors also wish to express their gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment (MAGRAMA) for providing the data necessary to develop this study

A specific insertion of a solo-LTR characterizes the Y-chromosome of Bryonia dioica (Cucurbitaceae)

Background: Relatively few species of flowering plants are dioecious and even fewer are known to have sex chromosomes. Current theory posits that homomorphic sex chromosomes, such as found in Bryonia dioica (Cucurbitaceae), offer insight into the early stages in the evolution of sex chromosomes from autosomes. Little is known about these early steps, but an accumulation of transposable element sequences has been observed on the Ychromosomes of some species with heteromorphic sex chromosomes. Recombination, by which transposable elements are removed, is suppressed on at least part of the emerging Y-chromosome, and this may explain the correlation between the emergence of sex chromosomes and transposable element enrichment. Findings: We sequenced 2321 bp of the Y-chromosome in Bryonia dioica that flank a male-linked marker, BdY1, reported previously. Within this region, which should be suppressed for recombination, we observed a solo-LTR nested in a Copia-like transposable element. We also found other, presumably paralogous, solo-LTRs in a consensus sequence of the underlying Copia-like transposable element. Conclusions: Given that solo-LTRs arise via recombination events, it is noteworthy that we find one in a genomic region where recombination should be suppressed. Although the solo-LTR could have arisen before recombination was suppressed, creating the male-linked marker BdY1, our previous study on B. dioica suggested that BdY1 may not lie in the recombination-suppressed region of the Y-chromosome in all populations. Presence of a solo-LTR near BdY1 therefore fits with the observed correlation between retrotransposon accumulation and the suppression of recombination early in the evolution of sex chromosomes. These findings further suggest that the homomorphic sex chromosomes of B. dioica, the first organism for which genetic XY sex-determination was inferred, are evolutionarily young and offer reference information for comparative studies of other plant sex chromosomes

A simulation-optimization methodology to model urban catchments under non-stationary extreme rainfall events.

Urban drainage is being affected by Climate Change, whose effects are likely to alter the intensity of rainfall events and result in variations in peak discharges and runoff volumes which stationary-based designs might not be capable of dealing with. Therefore, there is a need to have an accurate and reliable means to model the response of urban catchments under extreme precipitation events produced by Climate Change. This research aimed at optimizing the stormwater modelling of urban catchments using Design of Experiments (DOE), in order to identify the parameters that most influenced their discharge and simulate their response to severe storms events projected for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) using a statistics-based Climate Change methodology. The application of this approach to an urban catchment located in Espoo (southern Finland) demonstrated its capability to optimize the calibration of stormwater simulations and provide robust models for the prediction of extreme precipitation under Climate Change.This paper was possible thanks to the research projects RHIVU (Ref. BIA2012-32463) and SUPRIS-SUReS (Ref. BIA 2015-65240-C2-1-R MINECO/FEDER, UE), financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness with funds from the State General Budget (PGE) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The authors wish to express their gratitude to all the entities that provided the data necessary to develop this research: Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority HSY, Map Service of Espoo, National Land Survey of Finland, Geological Survey of Finland, EURO-CORDEX and European Climate Assessment & Dataset