Green infrastructure is a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas, including green and blue spaces and other ecosystems, designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services at various scales. Apart from the ecological functions, green infrastructure, as a planning tool, contributes to social and economic benefits, leading to the achievement of sustainable, resilient, inclusive and competitive urban areas. Despite recent developments, there is still no consensus among researchers and practitioners regarding the concept of green infrastructure as well as its implementation approaches, which makes it often difficult for urban planners and other professionals in the field to develop a robust green infrastructure in some parts of the world. To address this issue, an integrative literature review was conducted to identify which green infrastructure planning principles should be acknowledged in spatial planning practices to promote sustainability and resilience. As a result of this literature review, the most common eight green infrastructure planning principles were selected—connectivity, multifunctionality, applicability, integration, diversity, multiscale, governance, and continuity. These principles intend to promote and simplify the development and use of green infrastructure by different academic and implementation organizations and provide a more defined model for sustainable landscape management in order to help practitioners and decision makers during the conceptualization and planning of green infrastructure.

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Beach nourishment is a soft engineering intervention that supplies sand to the shore, to increase the beach recreational area and to decrease coastal vulnerability to erosion. This study presents the preliminary evaluation of nourishment works performed at the high-energy wave-dominated Portuguese coast. The shoreline was adopted as a proxy to study beach evolution in response to nourishment and to wave forcing. To achieve this aim, images collected by a video monitoring system were used. A nourishment calendar was drawn up based on video screening, highlighting the different zones and phases where the works took place. Over the six-month monitoring period, a total amount of 25 video-derived shorelines were detected by both manual and automated procedures on video imagery. Nourishment works, realized in summer, enlarged the emerged beach extension by about 90 m on average. During winter, the shoreline retreated about 50 m due to wave forcing. Spatial analysis showed that the northern beach sector was more vulnerable and subject to erosion, as it is the downdrift side of the groin.

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RESUMO. As perdas de nitrogênio (N) do solo na forma gasosa dependem das características intrínsecas dos solos e das condições ambientais. Em solos da mesma classe textural, a mineralogia da fração argila e o teor de matéria orgânica são os principais fatores que podem afetar a dinâmica do N. No Norte do Estado do Paraná, variações nestas características são encontradas em toposeqüências de solos derivadas do basalto onde no terço superior ocorrem solos altamente intemperizados como os Latossolos e nas outras seções do relevo ocorrem solos mais jovens como Neossolos e eventualmente Vertissolos. O objetivo do presente trabalho foi avaliar as perdas de N por volatilização da amônia, utilizando três solos argilosos (Latossolo Vermelho distroférrico -LVdf, Neossolo litólico -RL e Vertissolo Hidromórfico órtico -VGo) submetidos a duas condições de umidade (S8 e SS) e que foram tratados com uréia. A volatilização da amônia proveniente dos solos foi avaliada em recipientes plásticos de 2000cm 3 que receberam 500g de terra e 200mg de uréia por um período acumulativo de 10 dias. As perdas de N-NH3 foram avaliadas utilizando-se filtros de papel coletores, previamente umedecidos com H2SO4, que foram colocados 5cm da superfície do solo. Os resultados mostraram que os solos apresentaram diferenças quanto às perdas de amônia em função da umidade inicial e da mineralogia da fração argila. No tratamento com baixo teor de água (S8), os solos menos intemperizados (RL e VGo) apresentaram as menores perdas por volatilização da amônia devido a presença de elevadas percentagens de minerais de argila do tipo 2:1. No tratamento, solo saturado (SS), não houve diferenças estatisticamente significantes, nas perdas de N-NH3, entre os solos estudados.Palavras-chave: solos tropicais, fixação, matéria orgânica, teor de água, minerais de argila, ASE.ABSTRACT. Nitrogen losses by ammonia volatilization of three clayey soils treated with urea. The soil nitrogen (N) losses in gaseous form depend on their intrinsic characteristics and also on the environmental conditions. In soils with the same texture class, the mineralogy of the clay size fraction and the amount of organic matter are the main factors that may affect the N dynamics. In the State of Paraná northerner region, variations in these characteristics are found in the toposequence of soils derived from basalts where, in the landscape upper part, highly weathered soils, such as the Latosols, are found and, in the other sections, younger soils, such as Neosols and eventually Vertisols, are found. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the N volatilization losses from ammonia, using three clayey soils (Red Dystroferric Latosol-LVdf, Litholic Neosol-RL and Ortic Hydromorphic Vertisol-VGo) submitted to two soil moisture contents (S8 and SS) and treated with urea. The ammonia volatilization of the applied urea was evaluated in 2000cm 3 plastic recipients that received 500g of soil and 200mg of urea, for an accumulative period of 10 days. Paper filter collectors, previously humidified with H...

Green infrastructure is a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas that are designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services. It incorporates green and blue spaces and other physical features in terrestrial and marine areas. Despite the increase of green infrastructure planning in several regions of the world, such as Europe and North America, there is still a complexity and diversity associated with the concept of green infrastructure that influences the variance in approaches of green infrastructure planning. This research proposed a multi-criteria method that was organized in four steps for designing a green infrastructure for the municipality of Setúbal (Portugal) that efficiently integrated the ecological and social components in the planning and policymaking processes, as well as green infrastructure planning principles. The results show a green infrastructure that comprised around 91% of the territory of the case study, organized into two systems: the fundamental green infrastructure, which was related to the areas whose ecological interests were more favorable, and the urban green infrastructure, which aimed to enhance and intensify ecological processes in built-up areas. This approach focused on the protection of ecological functions, the preservation of the cultural and natural heritage, and the prevention of risks at a local level; it also followed several green infrastructure planning principles, namely, connectivity, multifunctionality, diversity, integration, and applicability.