Nutrient recycling and physical indicators of an alley cropping system in a sandy loam soil in the pre-Amazon region of Brazil

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Social cohesion in Latin America: concepts, frames of reference and Indicators

Includes bibliography

Expenditures, investment and financing for sustainable development in Brazil

Includes bibliography

Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2014: Challenges to sustainable growth in a new external context

Includes bibliography.

The employment situation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Recovery of employment: towards a sustainable model

The adverse effects on Latin America and the Caribbean of the global economic and financial crisis, the worst since the 1930s, have been considerably less than was once feared. Although a run of growth was cut short in 2009 and regional output shrank by 1.9%, the impact of the crisis was limited by the application of countercyclical fiscal and monetary policies by many of the region’s governments. The recovery in the economies, particularly in South America, has gone hand-in-hand with the rapid resurgence of the emerging economies of Asia, with all the favourable consequences this has had for global trade. A similar pattern may be observed regarding the impact of the crisis on labour markets in Latin America and the Caribbean. Although millions of people lost their jobs or had to trade down to lower-quality work, levels of employment (including formal employment) fell by less than originally foreseen. At the same time, real wages rose slightly in a context of falling inflation. The labour market thus stabilized domestic demand, and this contributed to the recovery that began in many countries in late 2009. Improved international trade and financing conditions, and the pick-up in domestic demand driven by macroeconomic policies, have led different commentators to estimate growth in the region’s economy at some 6% in 2010. As detailed in the first part of this edition of the Bulletin, the upturn has been manifested at the regional level by the creation of formal employment, a rise in the employment rate, a decline in joblessness and a moderate increase in real wages. Specifically, it is estimatedthat the regional unemployment rate will have dropped by 0.6 percentage points, from 8.1% in 2009 to 7.5% in 2010. The performance of different countries and subregions has been very uneven, however. On the one hand, there is Brazil, where high economic growth has been accompanied by vigorous creation of formal jobs and the unemployment rate has dropped to levels not seen in a long time. Other countries in South America have benefited from strong demand for natural resources from the Asian countries. Combined with higher domestic demand, this has raised their economic growth rates and had a positive impact on employment indicators. On the other hand, the recovery is still very weak in certain countries and subregions, particularly in the Caribbean, with employment indicators continuing to worsen.Thus, the recovery in the region’s economy in 2010 may be characterized as dynamic but uneven. Growth estimates for 2011 are less favourable. The risks associated with the imbalances in the world economy and the withdrawal of countercyclical fiscal packages are likely to cause the region to grow more slowly in 2011. Accordingly, a small further reduction of between 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points in the unemployment rate is projected for 2011. However, these indicators of recovery do not guarantee growth with decent work in the long term. To bolster the improvement in labour market indicators and generate more productive employment and decent work, the region’s countries need to strengthen their macroeconomic policies, improve regional and global policy coordination, identify and remove bottlenecks in the labour market itself and enhance instruments designed to promote greater equality. Like the rest of the world, the Latin American and Caribbean region is also confronted with the challenge of transforming the way it produces so that its economies can develop along tracks that are sustainable in the long term. Climate change and the consequent challenge of developing and strengthening low-carbon production and consumption patterns will also affect the way people work. A great challenge ahead is to create green jobs that combine decent work with environmentally sustainable production patterns. From this perspective, the second part of this Bulletin discusses the green jobs approach, offering some information on the challenges and opportunities involved in moving towards a sustainable economy in the region and presenting a set of options for addressing environmental issues and the repercussions of climate change in the world of work. Although the debate about the green jobs concept is fairly new in the region, examples already exist and a number of countries have moved ahead with the application of policies and programmes in this area. Costa Rica has formulated a National Climate Change Strategy, for example, whose foremost achievements include professional training in natural-resource management. In Brazil, fuel production from biomass has increased and social housing with solar panelling is being built. A number of other countries in the region are making progress in areas such as ecotourism, sustainable agriculture and infrastructure for climate change adaptation, and in formalizing the work of people who recycle household waste. The shift towards a more environmentally sustainable economy may cause jobs to be destroyed in some economic sectors and created in others. The working world will inevitably undergo major changes. If the issue is approached by way of social dialogue and appropriate public policies, there is a chance to use this shift to create more decent jobs, thereby contributing to growth in the economy, the construction of higher levels of equality and protection for the environment.

Network for Cooperation in Integrated Water Resource Management for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean No. 38

Editorial remarks.-- Open discussion: Using performance indicators to monitor drinking water supply and sewerage services ; Implications of biofuel development for water management and use.-- News of the Network: Reflections of URSEA in Uruguay, 10 years after its creation ; National Environmental Sanitation Strategy of El Salvador.-- Meetings: Workshop on Transboundary Water Cooperation (Buenos Aires, Argentina) ; Importance of the value of water: lessons and challenges (Lima, Peru).-- Internet and WWW News

Performance measurement and indicators for water supply management: review and international cases

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Modeling of hydraulic and energy efficiency indicators for water supply systems

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Introducing education for sustainable development in the undergraduate laboratory: quantitative analysis of bioethanol fuel and its blends with gasoline by using solvatochromic dyes

The concept of Education for Sustainable Development, ESD, has been introduced in a period where chemistry education is undergoing a major change, both in emphasis and methods of teaching. Studying an everyday problem, with an important socio-economic impact in the laboratory is a part of this approach. Presently, the students in many countries go to school in vehicles that run, at least partially, on biofuels; it is high time to let them test these fuels. The use of renewable fuels is not new: since 1931 the gasoline sold in Brazil contains 20 to 25 vol-% of bioethanol; this composition is being continually monitored. With ESD in mind, we have employed a constructivist approach in an undergraduate course, where UV-vis spectroscopy has been employed for the determination of the composition of two fuel blends, namely, bioethanol/water, and bioethanol/gasoline. The activities started by giving a three-part quiz. The first and second ones introduced the students to historical and practical aspects of the theme (biofuels). In the third part, we asked them to develop a UV-vis experiment for the determination of the composition of fuel blends. They have tested two approaches: (i) use of a solvatochromic dye, followed by determination of fuel composition from plots of the empirical fuel polarity versus its composition; (ii) use of an ethanol-soluble dye, followed by determination of the blend composition from a Beer's law plot; the former proved to be much more convenient. Their evaluation of the experiment was highly positive, because of the relevance of the problem; the (constructivist) approach employed, and the bright colors that the solvatochromic dye acquire in these fuel blends. Thus ESD can be fruitfully employed in order to motivate the students; make the laboratory "fun", and teach them theory (solvation). The experiments reported here can also be given to undergraduate students whose major is not chemistry (engineering, pharmacy, biology, etc.). They are low-cost and safe to be introduced at high-school level.

Benchmarking sustainable urban mobility: The case of Curitiba, Brazil

Transportation planning is currently being confronted with a broader planning view, which is given by the concept of mobility. The Index of Sustainable Urban Mobility (I_SUM) is among the tools developed for supporting this new concept implementation. It is a tool to assess the current mobility conditions of any city, which can also be applied for policy formulation. This study focus on the application of I_SUM in the city of Curitiba, Brazil. Considering that the city is known worldwide as a reference of successful urban and transportation planning, the index application must confirm it. An additional objective of the study was to evaluate the index itself, or the subjacent assessment method and reference values. A global I_SUM value of 0.747 confirmed that the city has indeed very positive characteristics regarding sustainable mobility policies. However, some deficiencies were also detected, particularly with respect to non-motorized transport modes. The application has also served to show that a few I_SUM indicators were not able to capture some of the positive aspects of the city, what may suggest the need of changes in their formulation. Finally, the index application in parts of the city suggests that the city provides fair and equitable mobility conditions to all citizens throughout the city. This is certainly a good attribute for becoming a benchmark of sustainable mobility, even if it is not yet the ideal model. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Consolidation of international guidelines for the management of canine populations in urban areas and proposal of performance indicators

Consolidation of international guidelines for the management of canine populations in urban areas and proposal of performance indicators The objective of this study is to propose a generic program for the management of urban canine populations with suggestion of performance indicators. The following international guidelines on canine population management were revised and consolidated: World Health Organization, World Organisation for Animal Health, World Society for the Protection of Animals, International Companion Animal Management Coalition, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Management programs should cover: situation diagnosis, including estimates of population size; social participation with involvement of various sectors in the planning and execution of strategies; educational actions to promote humane values, animal welfare, community health, and responsible ownership (through purchase or adoption); environmental and waste management to eliminate sources of food and shelter; registration and identification of animals; animal health care, reproductive control; prevention and control of zoonoses; control of animal commerce; management of animal behavior and adequate solutions for abandoned animals; and laws regulating responsible ownership, prevention of abandonment and zoonoses. To monitor these actions, four groups of indicators are suggested: animal population indicators, human/animal interaction indicators, public service indicators, and zoonosis indicators. The management of stray canine populations requires political, sanitary, ethologic, ecologic, and humanitarian strategies that are socially acceptable and environmentally sustainable. Such measures must also include the control of zoonoses such as rabies and leishmaniasis, considering the concept of "one health," which benefits both the animals and people in the community.

Are sustainable companies less risky and more profitable?

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were significant differences in accounting indicators when comparing sustainable enterprises to other similar companies that are not considered as sustainable. The Corporate Sustainability Index of BM (São Paulo Stock, Commodities and Futures Exchange) was the criterion selected to break down the samples into sustainable and non-sustainable enterprises. The accounting indicators were separated into two kinds: risk (dividend payout, percentage growth of assets, financial leverage, current liquidity, asset size, variability of earnings, and accounting beta) and return (ROA, ROE, asset turnover, and net margin). We individually analyzed the companies in the energy sector, followed by those in the banking sector, as well as the entire ISE portfolio as of 2008/2009, including all the sectors. Mann-Whitney tests were performed in order to verify the difference of the means between the groups (ISE and non-ISE). The results, considering the method chosen and the time span covered by the study, indicate that there are no differences between sustainable companies and the others, when they are assessed by the accounting indicators used here.

Sustainability indicators for environmental management and decision making

The general objective of this research is to explore theories and methodologies of sustainability indicators, environmental management and decision making disciplines with the operational purpose of producing scientific, robust and relevant information for supporting system understanding and decision making in real case studies. Several tools have been applied in order to increase the understanding of socio-ecological systems as well as providing relevant information on the choice between alternatives. These tools have always been applied having in mind the complexity of the issues and the uncertainty tied to the partial knowledge of the systems under study. Two case studies with specific application to performances measurement (environmental performances in the case of the K8 approach and sustainable development performances in the case of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy) and a case study about the selection of sustainable development indicators amongst Municipalities in Scotland, are discussed in the first part of the work. In the second part of the work, the common denominator among subjects consists in the application of spatial indices and indicators to address operational problems in land use management within the territory of the Ravenna province (Italy). The main conclusion of the thesis is that a ‘perfect’ methodological approach which always produces the best results in assessing sustainability performances does not exist. Rather, there is a pool of correct approaches answering different evaluation questions, to be used when methodologies fit the purpose of the analysis. For this reason, methodological limits and conceptual assumptions as well as consistency and transparency of the assessment, become the key factors for assessing the quality of the analysis.

LCA-GIS Integrated approach for a Sustainable Land Use Under Energy Crops

In genere, negli studi di vocazionalità delle colture, vengono presi in considerazione solo variabili ambientali pedo-climatiche. La coltivazione di una coltura comporta anche un impatto ambientale derivante dalle pratiche agronomiche ed il territorio può essere più o meno sensibile a questi impatti in base alla sua vulnerabilità. In questo studio si vuole sviluppare una metodologia per relazionare spazialmente l’impatto delle colture con le caratteristiche sito specifiche del territorio in modo da considerare anche questo aspetto nell’allocazione negli studi di vocazionalità. LCA è stato utilizzato per quantificare diversi impatti di alcune colture erbacee alimentari e da energia, relazionati a mappe di vulnerabilità costruite con l’utilizzo di GIS, attraverso il calcolo di coefficienti di rischio di allocazione per ogni combinazione coltura-area vulnerabile. Le colture energetiche sono state considerate come un uso alternativo del suolo per diminuire l’impatto ambientale. Il caso studio ha mostrato che l’allocazione delle colture può essere diversa in base al tipo e al numero di impatti considerati. Il risultato sono delle mappe in cui sono riportate le distribuzioni ottimali delle colture al fine di minimizzare gli impatti, rispetto a mais e grano, due colture alimentari importanti nell’area di studio. Le colture con l’impatto più alto dovrebbero essere coltivate nelle aree a vulnerabilità bassa, e viceversa. Se il rischio ambientale è la priorità, mais, colza, grano, girasole, e sorgo da fibra dovrebbero essere coltivate solo nelle aree a vulnerabilità bassa o moderata, mentre, le colture energetiche erbacee perenni, come il panico, potrebbero essere coltivate anche nelle aree a vulnerabilità alta, rappresentando cosi una opportunità per aumentare la sostenibilità di uso del suolo rurale. Lo strumento LCA-GIS inoltre, integrato con mappe di uso attuale del suolo, può aiutare a valutarne il suo grado di sostenibilità ambientale.

Sustainable regional development: Reconciling global and local dynamics and stakes in the Swiss Alps

This article explores how global and local dynamics and stakes can be brought together when trying to combine conservation and regional development. For this purpose we analyse a series of studies carried out in the area of the Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch World Heritage Site (WHS). The approaches used in these studies to analyse the diversity and development of the region included data collection and evaluation of indicators such as population development, number of working places, occupation rates in various economic sectors and commuter balance, as well as interviews with key informants and assessment of existing planning tools. The major challenge of the newly declared World Heritage Region is that it is neither a political or administrative nor a cultural unit but constitutes a completely new type of space that breaks up and crosses traditional boundaries. The studies revealed an economic tertiarisation process and migration of the population from remote areas to regional centres. Tourism was identified as the key economic sector in the region. Regarding regional sustainability, the studies identified a need for quality dialogue and negotiation of interests and stakes. It was shown that in dealing with sustainability at the local level, many key issues cannot be resolved on the ground, as they depend on regional or national decisions, e.g. the conditions for tourism promotion in the region or economic validation of agricultural activity. We conclude from these findings that national or even international factors do not provide a basis for location-specific solutions, as they are often too general, and that the global label does not ensure sustainability in a designated WHS region; this depends entirely on local and regional dynamics.